Daily AncestorPersonal estate
Personal estate, or personal property, means everything a person owns that is not land, such as money, livestock, furniture and debts owed to them.
Personal estate is movable property and things like debts owed: furniture, livestock, crops, tools and cash. The law also calls it personalty, and the word chattels is a near synonym. The 1860 and 1870 censuses asked its value.
In probate, personal estate was inventoried and used first to pay debts; land was sold only if it was not enough.
As seen in a recordColumn of the 1860 census
Value of personal estate: 450
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Daily Ancestor. "Personal estate." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/legal-land/personal-estate. Last checked 2026-10-01.