what does it mean when someone was Indentured to another family in the early 1800s?

Question

For the last few years Ive been researching my family tree and although Ive traced it all the was to the 1500s theres a few unconfirmed peices in there and im findiing documents saying that my gggg-grandpa was living with someone elses family and its sumised that his parents died or indentured him.... what does this mean and any clues on finding the information???
My Family Im researching is the Doan family from Bucks county PA, ontario canada, and then to Michigan

Answer 1

Usually when someone was an indentured servant they were contracted to work for someone to pay off a debt to them. Often in early America people would pay for others to make the trip from England and then those immigrants would work off that debt as an indentured servant.

Answer 2

I would look very carefully at the time and place and the status of other people living in the area to see if Indenture was common.

IMHO Unless there's some other evidence that an Indenture was involved, I would stay with the simplest explanation: he was a farm laborer who worked for room and board, or a cousin who was sent to help out on the farm or learn a trade with his relatives.

Answer 3

An indentured servant (or in the U.S. bonded laborer) is a labourer under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount of time, usually four to seven years, to pay off a passage to a new country or home. Typically the employers provided little if any monetary remuneration; however, they were responsible for accommodation, food, other essentials, and training. Upon completion of the term of the contract the labourer sometimes received a lump sum payment such as a parcel of land or tools and was free to farm or take up trade of his or her own.

Answer 4

indentured meant in dept to, as in financially, maybe for services rendered such as paying for them to come from Europe to the new world, this was the most common, and many weathy people had several indentured families working there large estate farms as a reslut of it, it wa actually a form of white slavery, in that they paid them no wages jper say, and had them do mostly meial jobs and the labor jobs, gave them minimal shelter such as shacks, and a tiny bit of land to use to grpw there own food and have a cow or a few chickens if luck. it was very common, and it was volentary, so in that way it was a legal contract, there where papers drawn up, and you signed or made your mark, and away you went. most did not know the employeers as friends, and after there standard 7 year contract, they where on there own, and usually given the little shack and bit of land they had been on as final payment of sorts. it ended by the 1840s, but had been fading out since the early 1800s generallly. it stemmed from the europena jpractice of the same effect and a mix of the apprentiship within the guild society which basically said that any twelve year old boy would be indentured to learn a trade to the emplouer who was a master trades man, weather blacksmith,fisherman, he the Master tradesman would provide shelter, usually a bed in a spare room or out buuilding, and bsic food and clothing. after 132 years the now young man of 24 could do one of three things, go in parnership, take over the trade fro mthe retiring (iff that was the case) master tradesman, or go into business on his own, withthe full backing of former master, and the guild society, awith legal paerwork and all. or they culd do a fourth, and just go do something else, such as indenture himself to go to the new world and go into farming eventually. It worked for them, but would not work for our society today, to many things are different these days, for better or worse.

Answer 5

Researching this topic, I ran across the startling statistic that 1/2 to 2/3s of all immigrants in Colonial America arrived as indentured servants, and over half the indentured servants died in their first two years of servitude. Ordinarily, the indentured servant would sell him or herself to an agent or ship captain usually for a term of seven years. In turn, he or she would be sold to a buyer to recover the cost of passage, which couldn't have been much since an indentured servant was allotted 3 pints of water and three biscuits daily.

Criminals convicted of a capital crime could be transported in lieu of a sentence, sometimes for theft as little as a shilling. Debtors and orphans were often sold as bond servants as well.

The English even transported Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie and sold them into indentured servitude. One of my ancestors, a John Macquarrie, was captured following the Battle of Cullodeen, and after he received a death sentence, the Crown commuted it to transportation. He ended up marrying the daughter of his master, Wilhelm Stout. His descendants live in Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas.