England Finding Trade Apprenticeship Records (National Institute)

Trade Apprenticeship Records (cont.)
CHART: Dashwoods from Index to Apprentices of Great Britain IR 17

It can be seen that those after 1752 have no parent given, and that there is an error in the index. The original reads Jos: but the entries above and below are both for John!

'''CHART: Inland Revenue Apprenticeship Books of Great Britain. Town Registers 1710''' [England—there is a separate list of Scots Indentures]

These were all Common Indentures + Counterpart collected by Wm Ward to Jno Ward at Leicester

Finding Trade Indentures and Apprenticeships
Some individual indentures survive in family papers and business archives. Collections of trade apprenticeship indentures can be found in many archives, particularly the county record offices and guilds. Many of these, and indexes to them, have been filmed; try Smith’s Inventory if they don’t show up on the FamilySearch Catalog.

The Society of Genealogists has a collection of 1,525 17th-19th century indentures known as Crisp’s Apprentices, but the Trinity House Petitions are now in the Guildhall and are on film. The Corporation of the City of London has the indentures of many of the apprentices who became city freemen. Miscellaneous material on apprentices in the army, navy and merchant marine can be found at the Public Record Office as explained in their leaflet D80.

There has been more written about Londoners’ trades but those researching ancestors outside the capital should not dismiss these sources. So many people went up to London to learn their trades or gain their qualifications that these resources apply to the whole country. Several cities and boroughs, such as York, Bristol, Southampton have published their companies’ registers, apprenticeships and freedoms and these may be filmed. The Board of Trade merchant seamen’s records also contain many apprenticeship indentures. It is always worth checking the local archives to see what they have.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses English: Occupation Records-Professions and Trades and English: Occupations-Military &amp; Services offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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