It was only a few years ago that I really began to understand how important the estates were in the lives in our Scandinavian ancestors. An estate consists of one main, large farm and manor with many other smaller farms supporting it. While we may think of this just as a geographical division, the estates functioned like a civil organization. Our ancestors had employment, housing, education, medical care and more all based on the estate where they lived. The estates serve as a jurisdictional division within the Scandinavian countries.
As can be imagined, the estates were owned by the same families for generations. They enjoyed tax exemptions, but they were also responsible for mustering their own military and providing jurisdictional authority in a court setting. This would include overseeing probates and criminal issues. All of these duties would be centered from the main manor for the estate, which could be many miles from our ancestors’ home. Some of these manor houses are very grand and still stand today. See this Wikipedia link for manor homes in Denmark. It’s amazing!
Over time the estate boundaries have changed, so knowing what farms were part of which estates is very important. FamilySearch has many hints built into their catalogs to help you find which farms belong where. Most of the source descriptions will guide you to the correct files.
Some of the records produced by the estate include probate records, lease records (land records), military conscription records, guardianship records (similar to probate) and more. As genealogists it is important to know this because we know which jurisdiction created and kept our ancestor’s records. If you want to find a probate record in Denmark, you may need to search by estate rather than county.