Re: Unrecognised Gedcom tag: FREE

Peter J Seymour wrote:
> I'm trying to use a gedcom file that has a lot of occurrences of an 
> unrecognised tag "FREE" at the 1 level under INDI (one per INDI). It 
> typically occurs in association with BIRT and DEAT. Problem is I can't 
> figure out what it means and the rest of the data doesn't help either. 
> The main data seems to be a date. Can anyone shed light on this tag.
> Thanks
> Peter
Suggested possibilities were to do with slavery or with "freedom to
marry".
As I understand it, a letter of freedom to marry is a letter normally 
passing between members of the clergy confirming that someone from a 
different parish is a confirmed church member. It is therefore unlikely 
to appear as do***entation in family history.
The suggestion about slavery seemed maybe plausible but didn't seem to 
make sense in the context of other data.
I couldn't find any Gedcom reference to a FREE tag, so I decided to cast 
the net wider and found the following which fits with the individuals 
moving from Europe to the USA in the 1600's:

Many immigrants did not have the money to pay their passage and they 
would contract to work for it. They would be indentured for a period and 
afterwards got a legal do***ent saying they had paid off their debt. 
They were then "freemen".
Also apparently a freeman could be a church member in good standing who 
had taken a civil oath called a "Freeman's Oath" and was thus allowed to 
vote and hold public office.
(See places such as wiki answers)

This seems to be what the tag refers to. Old news to some people I 
suppose, but you live and learn.
Regards
Peter