Apprentice Records and Bastardy Bonds are some of the forgotten places to find records for our ancestors. In many cases, they can be the earliest records one can find mention of an ancestor, helping to identify and locate them during the years prior to the 1850 census. Most People of Color were required to bound out their children at early ages and Apprenticeship records can be helpful in explaining why a child wasn't living with his/her parents in census records.
There are a number of websites with abstracts of these records, and below are a few of them:

Chatham County:
http://www.ncgenweb.us/chatham/bastardy.htm

http://www.ncgenweb.us/chatham/orphan.htm

Craven County:
http://newbern.cpclib.org/research/apprentice/index.html

Cumberland County:
http://ncgenweb.us/cumberland/apprentice.htm
http://ncgenweb.us/cumberland/bastardy.html

Granville County:
http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncgranville/other/orph-bnd.htm

Halifax County:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/halifax/court/minutes1.txt

Mitchell County:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncmitche/apprentices.html

Nash County:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncnash/base.htm

Warren County:
http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncwarren/misc/apprenticship-1779-1799.htm

http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncwarren/misc/apprenticeship-1800-1835.htm

http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncwarren/misc/apprenticeship-1836-1867.htm

http://www.ncgenweb.us/ncwarren/misc/bastardy-1779-1868.htm

Wake County:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bcamin/bbonds/wake.htm

Betty Camin's website, various Counties:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bcamin/betty.htm

Deloris