The database of inheritance cases (and other cases not requiring litigation) has mainly been built on the basis of the document pools of inheritance cases run by civil law notaries or courts in the capital (eg. the Royal Court of Justice of Budapest), but it also includes descriptions of non-litigational procedures run by them. The inheritance cases between 1872 and 1956 have survived in a fragmentary state and have been recorded, more so from the period between the two world wars and that following 1945. The capital’s jurisdiction has been determined on the basis of the deceased’s last domicile, so the property’s extensive location could also affect rural settlements.

The records include the type of the case, and the legators’ (the deceased, and in other cases, the applicants and other interested parties) personal data; the date of death in the case of an inheritance trial, with an indication of certain important document types (will, fatality records, bequest inventories). 73,000 records can be found in the database which represents roughly 100,000 customers’ personal data through non-litigational procedures and inheritance trials.

The database can be accessed through the Hungarian Cultural Heritage Portal.

The cases can be consulted on the basis of their reference code (eg. HU BFL – VII.1.d – 1909 – III.0515) in the archival research room. We have to note that the public records of this database don’t always mean unlimited access: to view the cases started after 1954 and the inheritance trials arising after 1924 concerning minors, it may be required the acquisition of a supporting resolution. About the archival materials affected by the construction of the database you can find detailed information in this table: