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

Version Date: Jan 12, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
Carole Shammas

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09443.v1

Version V1

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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.

Citation

Shammas, Carole. Inheritance Patterns in the United States, 1685-1980. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09443.v1

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Funding

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

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1685 -- 1980

Date of Collection

1983 -- 1985

Data Collection Notes

  1. 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.

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Data Source

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

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

1990-12-04

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • 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. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09443.v1

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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Notes