Greetings. I have been searching for my progenitor Henry Smith. Before anyone faints, we didn't move around a lot so most of my Smith searching has been a breeze. A few years ago I thought I found Henry on a ships list on OliveTree. I lost the info and haven't been able to recapture it. The Henry Smith I found was listed as 10 years old on an English ship that had gone to Holland and "picked them up". It was a bunch of children brought to Philadelphia and sold into indentured slavery. Children made lucretive targets because the usual 7 year indenture had to be prolonged until the child reached the age of majority, 21. This Henry would have had to work for 11 years in virtual slavery and then hope to be released with a suit of clothes and some tools. I think the date of arrival was around 1747. My family's oral tradition is fairly close to what I found. Can anyone help me? _________________________________________________________________ See their smiles, hear their laughter with MSN Messenger! http://messenger.msn.co.za/

On 10 Jun 2006 at 6:44, Sarah Cason wrote: > most of my Smith searching has been a breeze. A few years > ago I thought I found Henry on a ships list on OliveTree. I > lost the info and haven't been able to recapture it. The > Henry Smith I found was listed as 10 years old on an English > ship that had gone to Holland and "picked them up". It was a > bunch of children brought to Philadelphia and sold into > indentured slavery. Children made lucretive targets because > the usual 7 year indenture had to be prolonged until the > child reached the age of majority, 21. This Henry would > have had to work for 11 years in virtual slavery and then > hope to be released with a suit of clothes and some tools. I > think the date of arrival was around 1747. Hi Sarah, It's earlier than you mentioned and it's not the right state... but -- on my site Olive Tree Genealogy, there is a Henry Smith in the list of Palatine Children Apprenticed by Gov. Hunter in New York 1710-1714 http://olivetreegenealogy.com/pal/pal_kids1710-14.shtml Unfortunately I get 95 "hits" when I search for Henry Smith on my main site (Olive Tree)! Since I'm on dialup this would me some time to check them all to see if there are any other better possibilities. You might want to have a peek at Child Apprentices from England 1617-1778 at http://rootsweb.com/~ote/ships/index.htm#childapprentices Good luck! -- Lorine McGinnis Schulze * Olive Tree Genealogy (Ships Passenger Lists) http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ * Naturalization Records http://naturalizationrecords.com/ * Images of Ships Lists http://www.rootsweb.com/~ote/ships/ otg@csolve.net or olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com