They Couldn’t Take It with Them: Using Estate Inventories in Genealogical Research

You can learn a lot about your ancestors by looking at their possessions, or at least by looking at lists of their possessions if you don’t have historical artifacts or documents. Today’s blog will discuss estate inventories and how they were made by the wealthy, poor, and all those in between. Whether they held $50,000 in bank stock or only a cow and some pots and pans, our ancestors deserve to be remembered for who they were.

Estate inventories are frequently overlooked by genealogists because they believe these documents don’t provide genealogical evidence. But they do provide a glimpse into your ancestor’s personal life and the material culture of his or her time. For this reason, we’re going to take an economics approach as well as a genealogical one. By blending these approaches, we can get a much clearer and closer understanding of the world our ancestors lived in and how they fit into it, as well as ways to glean genealogical information from these inventories.

What is an estate inventory?

An estate inventory is part of the probate process after a person dies, but not every set of probate records contains an inventory. It lists real estate, personal property, bank accounts (if any), and debts as line items with detailed description of each item and its fair market value. The purpose of an inventory could be two-fold: to determine the value of assets of the deceased so they can be divided among heirs (assuming any assets were left after debts were paid) and to list assets to assure that the administrator or executor accounted for everything and didn’t mismanage the estate. In the eighteenth century, the economy was based largely on credit, making inventories necessary intrusions. Families of the deceased needed to assess the value of an estate before outstanding debts could be properly settled.

Where are the inventories?

Theoretically, original inventories are kept in probate packets if the packets have survived. They may be found in a general book with other probate documents, or they may be segregated in a separate volume. Some sleuthing may be necessary to track them down. Here’s a page from a Suffolk Co., Massachusetts probate docket. Note the different proceedings available for each decedent, including inventory. Also note that not every decedent had an inventory. FamilySearch has some filmed many individual packets that may be available on-line as well as Ancestry.com. Often there is a docket book like this one. It will will tell you if there is an inventory, and if so, where you can find it.

Get a genealogical dictionary

When reading an estate inventory, it’s a good idea to have a genealogical dictionary nearby. Some items in the inventory will be unfamiliar to modern researchers, and archaic terms will pop up that require definitions. You can also find definitions online.

What happens during an estate inventory?

List of items owned by deceased had to be filed with court to start the process of settling the estate, whether or not the deceased left a will. The court assigned local men as appraisers. The number varied, depending on the size of the estate. Appraisers were required to make a true and complete report of the deceased’s personal property and submit it to court. The apprisal became part of the deceased’s probate record, and sometimes it was transcribed into will books or in separate volumes, but originals may be in probate packet. This process protected the executor or administrator from excessive claims against the estate and protected the heirs against fraud or pilfering of their inheritance. The court also used it to set probate fees, as in modern practice.

As a result, values given to each item were close to the current market value, although there may have been a tendency to keep them low so fees levied against the estate would be lower. Some appraisers were merchants and would have been familiar with the standard prices of items at the time of inventory.

Timing of estate inventories

Usually the inventory was conducted soon after the court confirmed an administrator or executor. However, in some instances, this step seems to have preceded the appointment. Sometimes no inventory was done until it was time to wind up the estate, usually when the youngest child came of age, or the widow remarried or died.

Inventory Day

On the scheduled day, the appraisers visited the property. They walked throughout house, room by room. You can virtually follow appraisers through house by reading down the list of inventoried property. Some of them indicated what room they were in when they listed certain items. They identified each piece of property in each room, and all acreage and outbuildings, except in Virginia, where acreage was inventoried separately. One of the appraisers carried paper and pen and wrote down each item, including its estimated value. When finished, he totaled the value of real and personal estate and returned to the court. The apraisers were dismissed after the inventory was signed off and given to the court. (Figs. 2 and 3)

What do you want to find most in estate inventories? Probably the most sought-after item by genealogists using estate inventories is the family Bible, especially in years prior to the keeping of vital records. Why? Because it could be the only record of births, deaths, and marriages in the family if these events pre-date official recording of vital records. If you’re lucky, it may be possible to track a family Bible through several inventories. (Fig. 4)   

What else can estate inventories tell us?

The probate inventory can give you many other insights, not only into your family’s life, but also how your family compared to others in the community. Depending on what you find in an inventory, you may also pick up other valuable information:

• Social status
• Level of wealth
• Level of skills
• Literacy level, if books are present
• Layout of the house if items are listed room by room and labeled as such
• Different types of cookware may reveal various cooking processes
• What materials household items were made of can determine family’s level of wealth
• Presence of smoothing tables or boards and flat irons indicate clothes were ironed before wearing
• Types of food may reveal something of the family’s diet
• Trade or occupation of the deceased
• Distinguish between persons of the same name by matching inventory contents with tax rolls and agricultural census entries
• Prove relationship between a man and his children with property, real or personal, listed in inventories and will from one generation to the next

So, how much was it all worth?

Even after the Revolution and establishment of U.S. currency, for many years people still used the British monetary system in inventories. You’ll see values given in pounds, shillings, and pence. This was called “current money of state,” not British currency, because as colonies, they of course used the familiar system. Each state issued its own currency. The value of this currency could vary with other states, and monetary exchange rates fluctuated constantly. For example, you might find something valued at “ten pounds Pennsylvania money.” Fortunately, there are web sites to help you convert historical currency into today’s numbers. These will naturally be approximate but should give you an idea about the current value of inventoried items:

• Eric W. Nye, Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Conversion of Currency – http://www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm
• CPI Inflation Calculator – https://www.officialdata.org/
• Measuringworth.com – https://www.measuringworth.com
• Historical U.S. Money – https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/society-and-culture/history/historical-us-money
• Prices and Wages by Decade, 1770-2020 – https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/

The estate sale

To raise funds for the support of the widow and children or to convert perishables to cash, it was frequently necessary to conduct periodic sales of property under the surveillance of the court. First, the administrator/executor or guardian petitioned the court for authority to sell, stipulating the items, why the income was needed, and how much was expected to be realized. If the court authorized the sale, a public auctioneer was appointed and a careful account was kept of what was sold, how much each item brought, and who bought it. Check out the inventory of George Finley of Chatham Co., North Carolina in 1856. (Fig. 5) Nancy, his widow, bought back the majority of the household possessions because her husband owned them. They did not automatically become hers unless he previously willed them to her.

What also makes estate inventories valuable for genealogists is that they list names of buyers at estate sales. This should be considered a clue to establishing relationships when other data is lacking. However, finding a name in an inventory doesn’t necessarily mean there was a relationship to the deceased; you have to do your due genealogical diligence to determine that.

Inventories are also important when researching enslaved people. Determining family relationships is impossible if slaves are not listed in family groups, but if they are, this may be critical to someone doing slave research. The appraisal indicated financial value; slaves were valuable property and were appraised as such. A low appraisal may give a reason for devaluation, such as incapacitation, illness, or age. Be sure to pay attention to the owner’s name, plantation name, and location because it’s critical in locating other commonly used slave research records, such as bills of sale.

Strength and weaknesses of estate inventories

Estate inventories are unlikely to be fraudulent because appraisers were under oath to do the job honestly. They often had the same profession as the deceased and were likely to know the true market value of items. Also, as friends, colleagues, or neighbors of deceased and his family, they were likely to be diligent in their work. Nevertheless, inventories may not be a complete picture of wealth. Usually only moveables were listed, and sometimes the deceased owned no real estate, or real estate may have been listed done apart from the inventory. There was also no guarantee that items were representative of market value or that all items were listed. The deceased may have transferred property before his or her death, so the inventory didn’t represent total wealth. Lastly, estate inventories were not taken for every person who died. It’s also possible that the inventory may not have survived.

Despite their weaknesses, the value of estate inventories can’t be measured in dollars and cents. Although they’re most likely to be overlooked in pursuit of wills and administrations, they say far more about ancestral lives and how they actually lived than the will itself. Wills tell you who is supposed to get what, but estates tell you the story of ancestors’ lives through what they left behind. So don’t think you’ve found everything when you find your ancestor’s will, or even if you don’t find a will, because debts had to be paid and heirs had to be located.

Estate inventories can help piece together a picture of our ancestors’ everyday lives. So read those inventories!