An Early Estate Inventory Record
One of our probate records which gives insights into the daily lives of early Licking County residents is the Estate Inventory Record of the years 1815-1824. When a property owner died without a will, his belongings were listed in an inventory by persons who were assigned as appraisers by a court. The 1856 edition of Bouvier's Law Dictionary describes this sort of inventory as: "A list, schedule, or enumeration in writing, containing, article by article, the goods and chattels, rights and credits, and, in some cases, the lands and tenements, of a person or persons. In its most common acceptation, an inventory is a conservatory act, which is made to ascertain the situation of an intestate's estate, the estate of an insolvent, and the like, for the purpose of securing it to those entitled to it." Because of the "article by article" nature of these inventories, you can get some fascinating information about the possessions of a person from the pas