Constance asked: From: Constance J. To: pauldrake@charter.net Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 10:06 AM Subject: Estate inventories Hi Paul, I've gotten estate inventories, but then I've been unable to get others. Do they always have estate inventories? I've gotten wills and then could not find an inventory. **** Hi, Ms. Constance. If the death was intestate, unless the court had determined that it should be a "no asset" administration because the belongings of the decedent were minute or of very little value and so not worth the court costs and expenses to the heirs, then it is 99% sure that an inventory was taken in any of the colonies. Your problem is that not all those have survived the centuries. In testate deaths, though after the mid-18th Century if all the legatees agreed, occasionally inventories were not done in VA , NC, SC, etc. The same likelihood is there, and your problem is that the paperwork in the file is simply long gone. You might have noticed that very often while nothing else remains of the original paperwork in many estates, the inventories and also the listing of sums rec'd for items sold at public sale, were quite usully kept by the clerks, etc., thereby revealing the importance of those listings in the minds of all. I have also found that many Sheriffs' offices in old counties have a wealth of loose papers, no small number of which are the product of the sherriffs serving of summons and warrants on folks. As with inventories and many other "papers" once needed, the officers of govt. thought that some SHOULD be kept for many years, (thankfully for genealogists). Paul :-)