Daily AncestorChattel
A chattel is any movable personal property, such as furniture, tools or livestock, as opposed to land.
Chattel covered everything a person owned other than land and buildings: animals, money, tools, household goods. Goods and chattels is the usual phrase in inventories and wills.
Under chattel slavery, enslaved people were legally treated as the personal property of their owners. In the antebellum United States they therefore appear in inventories, wills and estate divisions, which are key sources for tracing enslaved ancestors.
As seen in a recordWill recorded in a county will book, 1800s
All my goods and chattels to be sold and the money divided among my children.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Chattel." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/legal-land/chattel. Last checked 2026-10-01.