Old legal and record term 1500s-1800s
What does chattels mean in an old will?
In a will or inventory, chattels are movable belongings, everything owned that is not land, from livestock and tools to bedding and plate. The fixed phrase is goods and chattels. Leases counted as chattels too, which surprises readers hunting for land in the wrong clause. You will meet it in wills and probate, mostly 1500s-1800s.
Where it appears: wills, probate.
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Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
Where will I see chattels in the records?+
Mostly in wills and probate, 1500s-1800s. Clerks abbreviated freely and spelling wandered, so expect variant wordings around it.
Do these old terms still matter for family history?+
Yes, a single word can settle a relationship. Relict names a widow, et ux hides an unnamed wife, natural son points at a parent. The words are dry, but what they encode about a family is not.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
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