Inventory

After a death, the executor or administrator had to list the estate's property and file it with the court. Estate inventories often go room by room or item by item: beds, pots, tools, books, animals, crops and debts owed.

Appraisers often set a value on each item, so the inventory and appraisement may be one document. For genealogists it shows how a family lived, what the person did for a living and sometimes who owed them money.