S/O Genealogy/Historical Questions

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There are so many history/genealogy-knowledgable people here.  I'm wondering if anyone can answer some questions I've had for a long time.

 

Indentured Servants from England - This is a really dumb question, but how did they find people to do this??  Did they put an ad in the newspaper (did they even have what we would consider newspapers in the 1600s)?  Did they have recruiters sent over from America going door to door in the impoverished section of town or something?  And how would they find so many of them?

 

One branch of my family, I can trace back to a city in Germany in the 1700s.  How can I go further in my search?  I've just really reached a dead end and can't figure out how to go back any further.

 

Another question about German family...  (There is a college prof who has done a ton of research on this, so that's how I know these details). So they lived on a "giant game park" that was built by the ruling Hohenlohe family.  Was this like the modern-day equivalent of one of those ranches where you pay to go hunting?  But something for rich people in the 1700s? Why would someone live there??  (And every time I think about it, I think of scary B-movies where people are walking through the forest, eaten by creatures they are hunting).   :001_unsure:

 

My great grandfather and his family were Native American.  They lived in Missouri.  My grandma said they were Blackfoot (she was pretty insistent about it, because people would argue with her and say that her family was from a different tribe).  The Blackfoot were mostly northern US/Montana - into Canada.  My grandma said there were pockets of Blackfoot families in Missouri.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Did the Blackfoot actually make it all the way down to Missouri?

 

Does anyone else have any history/genealogy questions?  You won't ruin my thread if you post.  Your questions can't be any worse than mine.  The more the merrier!  lol 

[Bluegoat]

 I think many indentured servants had debt, or had committed petty crimes.  And some might have been drawn by the possibility of eventually being able to make their way in the New World.

 

As far as the Blackfoot,  they were pretty nomadic, and had a pretty wide distribution at certain points, and there were often changes in territory as well where neighbouring groups had disputes or were pushed out etc. They seem to have been pretty war-like in terms of bettering their position with regard to territory, and sometimes were farther south than others.   In any case it's always possible to find some individuals and families that are in different places than.  

 

 

 

[mommymonster]

This article might be useful for further research on yourNative American heritage: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Blackfeet_Indians

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 I think many indentured servants had debt, or had committed petty crimes.    

 

So, both my great-g-g...grandfather and my great-g-g-...grandmother came from the same town in England and went as indentured servants to the same area, so I'm assuming they either went together or were just rounded up and shipped off to the same location.  I actually didn't realize that women were also indentured servants.  For some reason, I only pictured it being men.

 

Edited to add: They were Quakers (he was a shoemaker).  For some reason, it slipped my mind that people were indentured as punishment or against their will.  I don't know much about if Quakers were harassed in England.  I thought at that time that it was illegal to be Quaker in England (weren't they only allowed to be Church of England and nothing else?).

Edited March 8, 2018 by Evanthe

[Bluegoat]

So, both my great-g-g...grandfather and my great-g-g-...grandmother came from the same town in England and went as indentured servants to the same area, so I'm assuming they either went together or were just rounded up and shipped off to the same location.  I actually didn't realize that women were also indentured servants.  For some reason, I only pictured it being men.

 

Edited to add: They were Quakers (he was a shoemaker).  For some reason, it slipped my mind that people were indentured as punishment or against their will.  I don't know much about if Quakers were harassed in England.  I thought at that time that it was illegal to be Quaker in England (weren't they only allowed to be Church of England and nothing else?).

 

Yes, at various times it was quite difficult in England for anyone outside the national church - whether they were more on the Protestant side or more on the Catholic.  So you get people moving to North America from both groups to have more religious freedoms.