Description & Citation--Study No. 9443

Bibliographic Description

Study No.:

09443

Title:

Inheritance Patterns in the United States, 1685-1980

Principal Investigator(s):

Shammas, Carole

Funding:

National Science Foundation. Law and Social Sciences Program (SES-8208620)

National Endowment for the Humanities (RO-20466-83)

Bibliographic Citation:

Shammas, Carole. Inheritance Patterns in the United States, 1685-1980. ICPSR09443-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1990. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09443.v1

Scope of Study

Summary:

This data collection was designed to study changes in American inheritance patterns over three centuries. Major areas of investigation include equality of treatment among children, legacies to sons versus daughters, estate planning strategies, treatment of spouse in will, women's testamentary power, charitable bequests, bequests to extended kin and non-kin, legacies of chattel, realty, and financial assets, and the naming of executors and guardians.

Subject Terms:

eighteenth century, estate planning, financial assets, historical data, inheritance, legacies, nineteenth century, seventeenth century, twentieth century, wills

Geographic Coverage:

United States

Time Period:

  • 1685--1980

Date of Collection:

  • 1983--1985

Data Types:

event/transaction data

Data Collection Notes:

Marylynn Salmon, University of Maryland, Department of History, and Michel Dahlin, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Department of History, collaborated with Carole Shammas in the preparation of this data collection.

Methodology

Data Source:

Probate records (wills, administrations, and inventories) for Bucks County, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles County, California

Access and Availability

Note:

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

Original ICPSR Release:

1990-12-04

Version History:

  • 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 11 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

Dataset(s):

  • DS1: Wills: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1685-1756
  • DS2: Wills: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1791-1801
  • DS3: Wills: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1891-1893
  • DS4: Wills: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1979
  • DS5: Intestate Administrations: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1685-1756
  • DS6: Intestate Administrations: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1791-1801
  • DS7: Intestate Administrations: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1891-1893
  • DS8: Intestate Administrations: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1979
  • DS9: Wills: Los Angeles County, California, 1898-1900
  • DS10: Wills: Los Angeles County, California, 1980

Found a problem? Use our Report Problem form to let us know.

© 2011 Regents of the University of Michigan.  ICPSR is part of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.