Families listed in these lists :
American
families with aggregate fortunes of $ 1000000 or more in
year 1850. The residence state of families corresponds to
the place of residence of the main holders of family wealth or to the place
of the main family business.
The
founder(s) of a dynasty is/are the person(s) who have created the
business(es) which became the main source(s) of wealth of the family. In
certain cases there are composed families, with several founders, who may
have been siblings or otherwise related, partners in the same business or
not.
Through
the frequent intermarriages between members of the wealthy families, many
persons in our lists actually descend from more than one wealthy American.
Individuals are allocated only to one family, the one from whom they derive
most of their wealth.
Estimates of family fortunes :
Family
fortunes are derived from the individual wealth holders of a dynasty by
aggregation. The number of members is indicated in the column titled “Nbr”.
Only individuals with significant fortunes are considered but they may not
qualify for the Individuals lists (although they are in our database). Not
all descendants of the wealthy families or their fortunes are known, thus
some members may be left out of the analysis.
Over
time less and less inheritors of wealthy families have known or appraisable
significant fortunes and thus the older families tend to fall from our lists
over time.
Activity and source of wealth :
The
activity of a family is invariably the one which brought it most of the
wealth. The same holds for the source of wealth. In composed families, there
may be several activities and sources of wealth.
Links to family
profiles :
Families
for whom a profile already exists in our Encyclopedia appear in the darker
red color and a link is included to their profile. New profiles are added
regularly, as the author advances in his documentary work.
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