Hingham, Massachusetts Family Reconstructions, 1635-1880 (ICPSR 34546)

Version Date: May 19, 2014

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Principal Investigator(s):
Daniel Scott Smith, University of Illinois at Chicago

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34546.v1

Version V1

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Summary

The data are families in Hingham, Massachusetts, reconstituted by Daniel Scott Smith for his PhD dissertation from printed genealogies, vital, church and tax records, and censuses, along the lines of previous French and English work (e.g. Fleury, M. and L. Henry, Nouveau manuel de depouillement et d'exploitation de l'etat civil ancien (1965) and Wrigley, E.A, "Family Reconstitution," in E.A. Wrigley, ed. An Introduction to English Historical Demography (1966)). Family reconstitution is a method for studying demographic behavior in the absence of modern censuses and vital registration, providing for both observation of demographic events as well as the population and time at risk. In his dissertation, Population, Family and Society in Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1880 (University of California-Berkeley, 1973) Smith refers to the data as "statistical genealogy". The data were intended to be used to examine demographic patterns, family structure and social stratification in the past, and to generalize these patterns across the New England region. This dataset includes information on 1727 marriages. Variables include information about birth, death, marriage, fertility and wealth of husbands and wives, their parents and children. Naming practices are also represented in the data. There are no direct observations of children, but rather summary-type measures of characteristics of children and the couple's fertility history. A variable indicating the quality of the reconstitution is included. However, the meaning of the variable values has been lost.

Citation

Smith, Daniel Scott. Hingham, Massachusetts Family Reconstructions, 1635-1880. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2014-05-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34546.v1

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Town

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1635 -- 1880

Data Collection Notes

  1. There are discrepancies between the earliest and latest dates present in the data (husband's and wive's birth and death dates) and the study time periods and time frames provided by the data depositor. The dates indicated in the metadata fields "Study Time Periods and Time Frames" are those provided to ICPSR when the collection was deposited. No additional information was provided.

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Study Purpose

The data were intended to be used to examine demographic patterns, family structure and social stratification in the past, and to generalize these patterns across the New England region. Hingham was chosen because of its long and relatively complete set of records.

Study Design

The data are families in Hingham, Massachusetts, reconstituted by Daniel Scott Smith for his PhD dissertation from printed genealogies, vital, church and tax records, and censuses, along the lines of previous French and English work (e.g. Fleury, M. and L. Henry, Nouveau manuel de depouillement et d'exploitation de l'etat civil ancien (1965) and Wrigley, E.A, "Family Reconstitution." In E.A. Wrigley, ed. An Introduction to English Historical Demography (1966)).

Sample

Marriages were included in the data only if the families could be reconstituted: that is, the wife's birth date, the marriage date, the birthdates of children, and the date of the end of the marriage were all known. The methodology and biases arising from family reconstitution are discussed in Chapter 2 of Daniel Scott Smith, "Population, family and society in Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1880," Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1973.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Universe

The population of Hingham, Massachusetts.

Unit(s) of Observation

Family (not necessarily co-resident)

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2014-05-19

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Smith, Daniel Scott. Hingham, Massachusetts Family Reconstructions, 1635-1880. ICPSR34546-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2014-05-19. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34546.v1

2014-05-19 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Weight

The data are not weighted.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

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