My ggg-grandfather was an apprentice slater in Milnathort, Kinross-shire. We still have in the family his original "Indenture of Apprenticeship", http://www.chalmers-family.org/Kinross/JDC/appendix01.html - for both a transliteration and a photograph of the original. Records of apprenticeships were kept in burghs and Royal Burghs, but not generally in smaller towns, so we are fortunate to have this.. An apprenticeship would generally last for seven years. You will see from my "Indenture" the contract was not signed until a year after my ggg-grandfather had actually started working, and it was actually terminated "for a certain sum" some months short of the seven years completion. My ggg-grandfather was 11 when he started work in 1806, and we speculate that his elder brother also served an apprenticeship for the same man, but probably 5 years earlier. The apprenticeship was terminated so that my ggg-grandfather could start work with his brother. John > >Hello Lister, > >I am trying to find information regarding my great-grandfather James >GARDINER b c1826 to James Gardiner (Quarrier) and Anne SCOTT, probably in >Creiff. On the 1841 census it says he is an Apprentice Shoemaker - can >anyone tell me where I may find information about apprenticeships please? >Before becoming a farmer in Victoria in the late 1850s he was a shoemaker in >Victoria too. > >Any information regarding his parents would also be gratefully accepted. > >TIA, > >Lorraine (Dodemaide) Standfield, >Victoria, Australia. -- John Gibson Chalmers - john@chalmers-family.org Homepages ... http://chalmers-family.org/