Except for the first page, which serves as an introduction, this chapter is all primary sources, and primary sources of a special type: wills and probate inventories. Wills and probate inventories are the records of what people owned when they died. We don't have a lot of written evidence from the eighteenth century about how people lived, but we do have wills and probate inventories — and they tell us a surprising amount about how people lived and worked, how they organized their households, and how they thought about their families. By exploring these documents, you'll be the historian and detective, drawing your own conclusions about life in the eighteenth century from scraps of evidence.
A worksheet for analyzing will and inventories is also available.
Section Contents
- About Wills and Probate Inventories
- Primary Source: Probate Inventory of Valentine Bird, 1680
- Primary Source: Will of Susanna Robisson, 1709
- Primary Source: Probate Inventory of Darby O'Brian, 1725
- Primary Source: Will of Samuel Nicholson, 1727
- Primary Source: Will of William Cartright, Sr., 1733
- Primary Source: Probate Inventory of James and Anne Pollard, Tyrrell County, 1750
- Primary Source: Will of Richard Blackledge, Craven County, 1776
- Primary Source: Probate Inventory of Richard Blackledge, Craven County, 1777
- Visual Guide to Inventories
