Inheritance Patterns in the United States, 1685-1980 (ICPSR 9443)

Principal Investigator(s): Shammas, Carole

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. (more info)

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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

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09443.v1

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This survey was funded by:

• National Science Foundation. Law and Social Sciences Program (SES-8208620)
• National Endowment for the Humanities (RO-20466-83)

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.

Data Source:

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

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.

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