I've found on the ancestry Index both Martin & James PLATTS of Middlesex having admission papers to Freedom of the City What is this and can someone please get me copies Sue

> I've found on the ancestry Index > both Martin & James PLATTS of Middlesex having admission papers to > Freedom of the City > What is this and can someone please get me copies At that period, if you were a tradesman in the City of London (as they were) you had to belong to one of the City livery companies. This was usually done by apprenticeship to a trade and then, as a mature man, paying the extra fee to 'become free', meaning you were a fully paid up member, and had certain rights, the most important being that you could vote in City elections. Some men exercised one trade by were members of a different company ('by patrimony') because their father, grandfather or whatever was. (This is why you get men who were 'Citizen and Fletcher', thoiugh they never made an arrow in their lives>) A third alternative to the apprenticeship route was buying membership as an adult -'by redemption'. Even when the absolute requirement for take up Freedom to be able to trade was ended, people continued to do so, because it gave access to some rather chummy City dinners and an Old boy network. It should mean that the name of the father will be recorded on the paperwork, which may confirm something otherwise doubtful, or that it will be worth searching further back for other Citizens of the name. EVE Author of The McLaughlin Guides for Family Historians Secretary, Bucks Genealogical Society