There is a 50% chance or better that one of your Colony elders was an indenture. Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come under indentures. However, while half the European migrants to the 13 colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired. Free wage labor was the more common (in this sense) for Europeans in the colonies. Indentured persons were numerically important mostly in the region from Virginia north to New Jersey. Other colonies saw far fewer of them. The total number of European immigrants to all 13 colonies before 1775 was about 500,000; of these 55,000 were involuntary prisoners. (A separate 300,000 were enslaved Africans.) Of the 450,000 or so European arrivals who came voluntarily, Tomlins estimates that 48% were indentured. About 75% were under the age of 25. The age of adulthood for men was 24 years (not 21); those over 24 generally came on contracts lasting about 3 years. Regarding the children who came, Gary Nash reports that, "many of the servants were actually nephews, nieces, cousins and children of friends of emigrating Englishmen, who paid their passage in return for their labor once in America. -- Jeannie God Bless God Speed kymonroe@rootsweb.com ancestraltrackers.org