Studies
5 resultsFour Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts, 1630-1750
The data are drawn from 28 families who were the first permanent European settlers in Andover, Massachusetts, and their progeny for three generations, reconstituted by Philip J. Greven for his PhD dissertation, Four Generations: A Study of Family Structure, Inheritance, and Mobility in Andover, Massachusetts, 1630-1750 (Harvard University, 1965). Greven used manuscript records of vital events, printed volumes of vital records, and published genealogies, supplemented with municipal and church records, gravestones, court records, and family records, following the methods developed in previous French and English work (e.g. Fleury, M. and L. Henry, Nouveau manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancient (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. The data were collected to study population, land and the family for four generations in Andover, Massachusetts during the 17th and 18th centuries. The data include information on 455 marriages and 2,727 children, some of whom also appear as adults in the marriage records. The data on couples focus on demographic details for mothers and fathers, including birth, baptism, marriage, and death dates, and residence. The data on children include demographic information for the child, as well as their own marriages. Not all families have complete information. Greven's original Family Reconstitution Records were transcribed at ICPSR.
Families of Newtown, New York, 1642-1790
This dataset focuses on economic, social, and geographic mobility of town residents, and life events (marriage, birth and mortality). Church records supplemented with genealogies, wills, inventories, probate records, cemetery data, town books, court books, censuses, and tax lists were used to reconstitute families along the lines of previous French and English work (e.g. Fleury, M. and L. Henry, Nouveau manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancient (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. This dataset includes information about 202 couples and their 1094 children. The data on couples focus on demographic details for mothers and fathers, including birth, baptism, marriage and death dates, residence and religion. The data on children includes demographic information for the child, as well as marriage age and residence. Not all families have complete information.
European-origin and Mexican-origin Populations in Texas, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910
This dataset was produced in the 1990s by Myron Gutmann and others at the University of Texas to assess demographic change in European- and Mexican-origin populations in Texas from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries. Most of the data come from manuscript records for six rural Texas counties - Angelina, DeWitt, Gillespie, Jack, Red River, and Webb - for the U.S. Censuses of 1850-1880 and 1900-1910, and tax records where available. Together, the populations of these counties reflect the cultural, ethnic, economic, and ecological diversity of rural Texas. Red River and Angelina Counties, in Eastern Texas, had largely native-born white and black populations and cotton economies. DeWitt County in Southeast Texas had the most diverse population, including European and Mexican immigrants as well as native-born white and black Americans, and its economy was divided between cotton and cattle. The population of Webb County, on the Mexican border, was almost entirely of Mexican origin, and economic activities included transportation services as well as cattle ranching. Gillespie County in Central Texas had a mostly European immigrant population and an economy devoted to cropping and livestock. Jack County in North-Central Texas was sparsely populated, mainly by native-born white cattle ranchers. These counties were selected to over-represent the European and Mexican immigrant populations. Slave schedules were not included, so there are no African Americans in the samples for 1850 or 1860. In some years and counties, the Census records were sub-sampled, using a letter-based sample with the family as the primary sampling unit (families were chosen if the surname of the head began with one of the sample letters for the county). In other counties and years, complete populations were transcribed from the Census microfilms. For details and sample sizes by county, see the County table in the Original P.I. Documentation section of the ICPSR Codebook, or see Gutmann, Myron P. and Kenneth H. Fliess, How to Study Southern Demography in the Nineteenth Century: Early Lessons of the Texas Demography Project (Austin: Texas Population Research Center Papers, no. 11.11, 1989).