Sources

Here, a pair of notaries assess the contents of an elite home in colonial Virginia

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, inventories were an indispensable part of settling an estate after a person's death. They might also be drawn up at the time of a couple's marriage, as the French legal system distinguished between property owned by one spouse independently of the other. French notaries were often quite meticulous, noting colors, wood, textiles, and sometimes even the style of furnishings in a home. As they often moved from room to room, inventories are among the most important sources for understanding room distribution within a house, as well as the activities that took place under its roof.

A fully transcribed and translated inventory will be made available here soon.