Estate Inventories

In earlier days, when someone died, an inventory of their estate was conducted, men of integrity were selected to make the inventory and appraise the value of all property, including slaves, and normally there were at least three men chosen to do so.   I am glad to discover that some of our ancestors were such men.

In the SC Dept of History and Archives there is a book that records all these probate records, and thanks to the Lowcountry Africana project, they are being scanned and made available.  Following are clips from the scans that pertain to our family and the world of Foxbank.

This listing is called "South Carolina Estate Inventories and Selected Bills of Sale; 1732-1872" and the clips appear here courtesy of the SC Dept of History and Archives and Lowcountryafricana.com and the originals and complete listings can be found at Fold3.com.  These appearing below are only the ones where our family names appear.   

We see a time span for our family from 1789 - 1862.  The first record is a mention of John Lynes (presumed of Bacon's Bridge) who has a bond listed as part of an estate. The last record is the inventory of Rev. Samuel Lynes (Jr.) estate.

Principal names listed are:

John Lynes

Benjamin Lynes

Morgan Lynes

Jacob Minus (father in law of John Lynes of Bacon's Bridge)

Isaac Lynes

Edward Lynes inventory

Eliza[beth] Lynes - purchase of slaves

Samuel Lynes

Rev. Samuel Lynes Jr.

William Thomas Lynes (never seen this name before)

George Grumes

George Lynes

GW Lynes

Many more are found in the documents, such as Whitfield, McCullers, Donnally, and many others. This is an important resource.

What is a riding chair you may ask?  (we see that in many inventories)  See the picture at the top of this page. They were fairly common.