This series contains unbound original apprentice indentures of the Court of Ordinary of Oglethorpe County. Also called Five Year Contracts, these indentures bound a person, often a minor, to an apprenticeship with a master of some trade or industry to work a specified period of time, usually five years but sometimes less, and for a specified amount of money. Also present are crop and rent contracts in which the apprentice and master equally divided the crops raised. More often than not these apprentices were poor orphans who were ordered by the court to be apprenticed in order to be taken care of and also to earn their keep. On the front of most indentures is the book and page where the files are recorded although no effort has been made to compare the completeness of this file with the recorded copies of the indenture volumes of the county. This series has records that are also found in Series 6, record Group 209.