Inventory of estates

An estate inventory is a document in which an estate's assets and liabilities are reported. Estate inventories were to be drawn up according to law in 1734, but also occurred in the 17th century. In some cases, estate inventories were also made when the estate had to be divided in the event of bankruptcy or divorce. Not everyone got an estate inventory, they were only made for those who had assets in the estate.

The older estate inventories often contain very detailed lists of possessions such as furniture, household utensils, clothes, animals, books and more and are therefore fantastic historical sources.

The estate inventories are usually in the archives of the district courts/town hall courts (häradsrätter/rådhusrätter) and Riksarkivet stores the material from the 17th century until 2001. A large part of the estate inventories are digitized, either as scanned volumes or where parts of the content are registered in searchable databases. The digitization has not always been coordinated and has therefore been done in slightly different ways.

Here is an overview of the digitally available estate inventories.

• Bouppteckningsdatabas 1622–2001 Inventory of estates 1622–2001. Searchable estate records for a large part of the country.
• Skannade register till domstolsarkiven Scanned registers to the court archives. Typewritten or handwritten registers in alphabetical order, from the 17th to 19th centuries.
• Bouppteckningsprotokoll, skannade
  Estate inventories, scanned. These are included in the archives of the district courts/town hall courts (häradsrätter/rådhusrätter).
• Domstolsarkiv Court archives. It is mainly the series of inventory estate for the period 18th century to about 1860 that are available digitally.
• Bouppteckningar i Stockholm Estate inventories in Stockholm.
• Bouppteckningar i Stockholm efter präster och judar Estate inventories in Stockholm from priests and Jews.

Newer estate inventories

• 1980–2001. All the country's estate records from this period are digitized in a database that is only available in Riksarkivets research rooms
• Estate inventories after 1 July 2001 are provided by the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket)

Estate inventories for royal, noble and bergverksanställda

Until 1916 the royals and the nobility had their estate inventories handled by the courts of appeal (hovrätterna). Bergverken often had their own administration of justice and thus prepared their own estate inventories.

Svea hovrätt

• Kungliga bouppteckningar Royal estate records. A selection is digital.
• Adliga bouppteckningar Noble estate records, 1736–1916.
• Testamenten, äktenskapsförord och morgongåvobrev Wills, prenuptial agreements and morning gifts 1775–1868.

Göta hovrätt huvudarkivet

• Register över bouppteckningar, testamenten, morgongåvebrev m m Registers of estate inventories, wills, morning gifts, etc. 1650–1916.

Hovrätten över Skåne och Blekinge

• Bouppteckningar 1821–1917 Inventory of estates 1821–1917.
• Bouppteckningar i förseglade konvolut 1822–1893, 1947 Inventory of estates in sealed envelopes 1822–1893, 1947.

Bergmästaren i Nya Kopparbergs m fl bergslag

• Bouppteckningar, arvskiften Estate inventories, inheritances.