New on Ancestry, from the London Metropolitan Archives, this is a large collection, 240,110 indexed document images.
"Freeman are: a man who did not have to pay trade taxes and shared in the profits of his borough, a person free of feudal service who had served their apprenticeship and could trade in their own right, and anyone who was a member of a City Guild. "Freedom of the Company" meant that a person had earned freemen status within the company or guild and could then apply for Freedom of the City."
The database typically contains name, date of indenture, parent or guardian name, county/place of residence, master's name.
I notice a case in a family related by marriage to mine in which a son was admitted as a Freeman of the Drapers Company by virtue of being born while his father was a Freeman in the company.
Sigh. Once again, Mr Reid, you're deflecting me from things I should be doing! It took me a day to persuade Ancestry to actually show me the documents, but golly, once I saw them.... My great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather were all admitted to the Freedom of the City by patrimony, and the document for my great-great-great-great-grandfather is his indenture paper when he was apprenticed to a member of the Company of Merchant Taylors. Assuming he was apprenticed at 13 or 14, I now have an approximate year of birth for him! Very exciting!
ReplyDeletePersephone: That's not one I mind being blamed for -- as long as it didn't divert you from putting something new on Post it Notes from Hades!
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