Probate records are court records that describe the distribution of a person’s estate after he or she dies. Information in the records may include the deceased’s death date, heirs and guardians, relationships, residences, estate inventory, and witnesses. These records are of great value for genealogical research because they identify family relationships and clues.

The most common wills and probate records kept by the notaries in Brazil are listed under the “Notarial Records” section of this outline. Wills made by the ecclesiastical authorities are found in diocese archives, archdiocese archives, or occasionally the parish archives. Often these wills have been deposited in municipal archives. There were also some wills written by the individual without the aid of a notary or clergy. These are found in public registries, private homes, and museums.

About 65 percent of the records in the legislative and judicial section of the National Archives, in Rio de Janeiro, are inventories and wills. There is a partial name index to these records that includes about 40,000 individuals’ names.

In the state archives of São Paulo there is a collection of inventories and wills (inventários e testamentos) covering 1578 to about 1800. This collection contains about 2,000 volumes. These records were originally compiled by notaries and orphan-court judges. They often give the deceased persons’ names, places of birth in Portugal, and children’s names and ages. A few of these (from 1633 to 1651) have been published by the archive in: