Indentures were written agreements, and were sometimes found as contracts whereby a parent or grandparent, (or judges of the Orphans Court) would bind a child over to a master who would agree to teach the child to read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, and to teach a specific trade within a specified time. The apprentice would agree to serve the master, to learn the trade, and not to gamble or engage in other activities that would impair his or her usefulness to his master. The indentures of the County Orphans Court contain indentures of children from many other counties, and even from outside Maryland. These County Indentures, formerly deposited at the county court houses have been accessioned at the Maryland State Archives in the original record books or on microfilm. Other record books may have been recently transferred and have not been accessioned. Please check out the Maryland State Archives website to see which counties have these records. Isabelle On Dec 29, 2006, at 1:00 AM, md-baltimorecity-request@rootsweb.com wrote: Anyone have an idea on finding old apprentice records? There was a sailmaker in Baltimore city that my ggggrandfather apprenticed with. He served in the war of 1812, but those papers didn't name his parents. Am hoping apprentice records might.