In deed verbiage (1700's) what does "assignee" mean, i.e., I've found where an individual issued his "assignee" a land patent. Is the assignee like an individual that is in an apprenticeship, a child placed with a guardian, an individual bound out (another good one - "bind"), an individual brought to the colonies at another's expense and assigned??? to someone else, what? When minute books, etc. state that the "Overseer of the Poor" or another person of some title was going to bind a child to another adult individual what does this indicate? Were the parents likely dead or indebted or did parents do this to their own children? Was it for the purpose of paying debts, merely teaching a trade, or were these children identified as unlikely to succeed without intervention - what? Someone once gave me a website for definitions of old but I can't seem to locate it. If you don't know the answers maybe you are familiar with this site and would be so kind as to point me there.