Ipswich Probate Inventories, 1583-1631

This database is a compilation of probate inventories from Ipswich from the years 1583 to 1631. The taking of an inventory of a deceased person's possessions was first required by law in 1529. In the probate sense an inventory is basically a list of personal goods of a deceased individual, excluding landed property. As stated in the introduction to this work, inventories can provide you with some of the most detailed aspects of English life. However, they generally can only act as a minimum statement of a deceased person's wealth and the construction of social hierarchy based only on inventories can often be misleading. In addition to naming the items in a person's possession, inventories also usually include the monetary value of each item listed.