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I copied and pasted the below info I found making a search via Yahoo--there is also Google and other search engines as they call them. The second paragraph mentions trainbands:
"Militia laws emphasized the importance of a well-armed citizenry in numerous ways. To ensure that each man had the requisite weapons and accoutrements, colonies instituted a review of arms, imposing the duty. of conducting it on militia officers, muster masters, or other specially appointed officials. Every colony's law detailed how destitute citizens could be armed at public expense, and legislatures provided for public arsenals to supplement individually owned armaments. Colonies also required that even men exempted from attending musters should be completely armed and equipped.
Although the basic tactical unit in all the colonies was the company, or trainband, regional variations and changes over time were as important as the superficial uniformity. No standardized company size existed, some companies containing as few as sixty-five men and others as many as two hundred. Some trainbands elected their officers, but in others the governors appointed them. Southern colonies, with widely dispersed populations, often organized companies on a countywide basis, while in New England, with its towns and villages, individual communities contained their own trainbands. As populations increased and the number of trainbands grew, colonies organized companies into regiments to preserve efficient management. As one last example of the variety and change within militia units, the initial all-infantry composition evolved into a mixture of infantry and mounted units, the latter providing increased maneuverability and speed, which were valuable assets in Indian warfare."
Basically trainbands were local militias.
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