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LINKS stands for 'LINKing System for historical family reconstruction' and is a software system to link nominal data from the Dutch archives and ultimately reconstruct historical individuals and families. We present the background and philosophy of this matching system and explain its data structure and functioning. Currently the core data of the LINKS system consists of indexed civil certificates. These certificates are available from 1812 -- the start of the Dutch Vital Registration -- until the year they are confidential based on privacy laws. For more than 20 years, thousands of volunteers have been working to build this index, which contains not only the names of newborn, married and deceased persons, but also the names of their parents, places of birth, ages and sometimes their occupational titles. The software system LINKS includes the standardization of all input before linking, nominal record linkage procedures and identification of all unique persons involved in the system. All processes are repeatable and a strict distinction is maintained between source data, standardized, linked and enriched data and released data. Moreover, LINKS also informs archives about all kinds of errors and inconsistencies found during the cleaning and matching process. We will discuss two matching systems, the first is the original querying system that runs within a MySQL database environment and the second is a newly developed system, called burgerLinker, which is based on knowledge graphs and which is designed as a system that can be used independently from LINKS and is made available as open source software. Finally, we present the most important releases of LINKS data so far: two national releases that link birth and parental marriage certificates, creating families and pedigrees and an integrated dataset of persons, families and family trees in four provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1966, the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) has worked to create comprehensive genealogical data of the Quebec population. The PRDH longitudinal database, the Registre de la population du Québec ancien (RPQA), draws upon the French Catholic parish registers of the St. Lawrence Valley as its main source material. This family reconstitution covers the French Catholic population of Quebec up to 1799, along with deaths after 1800 of persons born before 1750. Subsequent partnerships with l'Institut Généalogique Drouin, FamilySearch and Ancestry as well as collaboration on the 2011-2017 Infrastructure intégrée des Microdonnées historiques de la Population du Québec (1621-1965) (IMPQ) project enabled the PRDH to continue efforts to reconstitute the French Catholic population up to 1849. Despite these advances, pushing family reconstitution forward to the mid-19 century has forced the PRDH team to reckon with the increasingly mixed and geographically mobile Quebec population of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This article describes the content and design of the RPQA database, detailing the structure of the RPQA relational database and the breadth of variables available for data management and analysis. It then describes features of the IMPQ extension of family reconstitution from 1800 to 1849, including observational protocols necessary to use these data and consideration of data completeness after 1800. At the same time, the article addresses the fundamental question, "What is my population?" as part of a broader reflection upon the target population encompassed by these data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue of Genealogy examines the use of evidence, documentation, and methodology in family history and genealogical studies, and welcomes case studies that examine how to document individuals and relationships. A critical component of scholarly research focusing on the study of particular individuals or groups entails correctly identifying those individuals Historians, genealogists, historical demographers, and scholars in other disciplines sometimes undertake this sort of analysis. Often, research is uncomplicated if the research subject remained in a particular geographical area, or left a clear evidentiary trail, but what happens when historical documents do not clearly identify the research subject? Utilizing a case study approach, this essay employs four different research methods—the chronological study, family reconstitution, community study techniques, and the one-name study—to identify an individual whose correct historical identification was problematic. As such, it establishes a research strategy that can be employed in similar situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The method of family reconstitution has been considered inapplicable in Mexico, due to the multiple obstacles offered by the available documentary sources. However, this paper demonstrates that it is possible to apply this method. In Uruapan the reconstitution method was used between the late 17th century and much of the 18th century, which provided fundamental data on fecundity, age to marriage, family size, protogenic and intergenetic intervals. These data showed changes in the two registered quality groups: Indians and Rational People. Fecundity was analyzed in several components: age to marriage, years of marriage, evolution by age, years of marriage and procreated children. Fecundity was also analyzed during the study period to identify the effect of mortality crises and hollow generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Antwerp COR*-database is a longitudinal micro-level database, which covers all entries from individuals whose last names started with the letters COR (and individuals who shared at some moment in time a household with a COR*-person) from the population registers and the vital registration of births, marriages and deaths for the 19th- and early-20th-century Antwerp district in Flanders, the northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. As such the database allows the reconstruction of historical life courses and families, and the analysis of key demographic characteristics and developments regarding marriage, fertility, migration, social mobility, health, mortality and longevity, as well as their interplay within and across households, families and generations. After a short description of the source material and the construction of the database, a review of the literature based on the database is presented in order to provide the reader with an encompassing overview of the research that has been carried out with this database and the knowledge and insights it has generated since its first release in 2010. The article ends with a discussion of potential pathways for future research, including new topics, and future extension of the database through citizen science projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical demography is in transition from a data-poor to a data-rich environment. Previous generations relied on demographic models to squeeze as much information as possible from the small amounts of data available. In this new era of large data sets, researchers are creating both regional and international historical data sets of unprecedented size and depth. When examined closely, however, the regression methods used today make the same simplifying assumptions that generated the key advances of earlier generations. These new methods require demographic insight to inform analyses and enrich conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TheProgramme de recherche en démographie historique(Historical Demography Research Programme) (PRDH), founded in 1966 and based at the Département de Démographie of the Université de Montréal, has since its inception featured a central project, a family reconstitution database of Quebec’s Catholic population from 1621 to 1799 named theRegistre de la population du Québec ancien(Population Register of Historic Quebec) (RPQA). This article, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the project, explores the development of the RPQA over the five decades in the context of similar international databases, explains the current state of the database as well as our record linkage methodology, describes an important collaboration now underway to build a larger Quebec historical data infrastructure, outlines new and renewed international collaborations, and summarizes research conducted using these data as well as future research possibilities. The particular geographic context, historical development and manageable colonial population size of Quebec favoured family reconstitution of the whole colony from the beginning of the project. Today, the RPQA comprises 438,193 individual biographies and 74,000 family files encompassing up to nine generations. To reconstitute families, we must identify and incorporate into the databasealldemographic events, including those whose existence can only be inferred through other sources. Future efforts to link nineteenth-century parish acts will need to deal with large case counts, mixed Catholic–Protestant marriages, and increased geographic and social mobility. The integration of complementary data will provide information on household co-residence, occupations, help track the destinies of mixed-religion persons and persons outside nuclear families and provide additional points of observation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Child naming is an essential part of family life, because choosing a name is never a random decision. This practice can also be used to reconstitute the dynamics of family structures at a given time. For 19th century Transylvania, due to a historical population database under construction at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, such a reconstruction can be done for the first time. The present paper focuses on the practice of necronymic naming, as an indication of the importance of certain names in the family. For this analysis, two localities were selected, Ocna-Mureş and Războieni-Cetate. Although this research is still a work in progress, there is already plenty of data to support the hypothesis that child naming was used to strengthen family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family reconstitutions have been undertaken only rarely in urban settings due to the high mobility of historical urban populations, in both life and death. Recently Gill Newton has outlined a methodology for the reconstitution of urban populations and we applied a modified version of this method to the large Westminster parish of St. Martin in the Fields between 1752 and 1812, a period that posed particular difficulties for family reconstitution because of the rapid lengthening of the interval between birth and baptism. The extraordinary richness of the records for St. Martin in the Fields made it possible to investigate burial and baptismal practices in great detail, and the extent and impact of residential mobility. We found that short-range, inter-parochial movement was so frequent that it was necessary to confine the reconstitution sample to windows in which families registered events at a single street address. Using birth interval analysis and the frequencies of twin births it was possible to demonstrate that the registration of birth events was fairly complete, but that many infant and child burials were missed. These missing burials probably resulted from the unreported export of corpses for burial in other parishes, a phenomenon for which we had considerable evidence. The limitations of family reconstitution in this highly mobile and heterogeneous urban population is discussed and we demonstrate some checks and corrections that can be used to improve the quality of such reconstitutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nuclear family is both crucible and product of capitalism and modernity, carried forth and modified across generations through ordinary communicative and other social practices. Focusing on postindustrial middle-class families, this review analyzes key discursive practices that promote 'the entrepreneurial child' who can display creative language and problem-solving skills requisite to enter the globalized knowledge class as adults. It also considers how the entrepreneurial thrust, including the democratization of the parent-child relationship and exercise of individual desire, complicates family cooperation. Family quality time, heightened child-centeredness, children's social involvement as parental endeavor, children's autonomy and freedom, and postindustrial intimacies organize how family members communicate from morning to night. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses debates around the changing nature of old age, using UK data on spending on dress and related aspects of appearance by older women to explore the potential role of consumption in the reconstitution of aged identities. Based on pseudo-cohort analysis of Family Expenditures Survey, it compares spending patterns on clothing, cosmetics and hairdressing, 1961–2011. It concludes that there is little evidence for the ‘baby boomers’ as a strategic or distinctive generation. There is evidence, however, for increased engagement by older women in aspects of appearance: shopping for clothes more frequently; more involved in the purchase of cosmetics; and women over 75 are now the most frequent attenders at hairdressers. The roots of these patterns, however, lie more in period than cohort effects, and in the role of producer-led developments such as mass cheap fashion and the development of anti-ageing products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using family reconstitution data from the Dutch provinces of Groningen, Drenthe, and Zeeland, trends and risk factors of maternal death from 1846 to 1902 are studied. Findings confirm other studies of maternal mortality trends for the Netherlands in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and show that rates were already steadily decreasing in the mid-nineteenth century. The role of biological and social risk factors including age, parity, birth interval, social class, season, and year of giving birth were also explored. Among biological factors we find an increased risk of maternal death for short birth intervals, late maternal age, high and low parity, multiple gestations, and stillbirths. Social factors associated with increased risk are belonging to the skilled working class, being a farmer, giving birth in winter or spring, and giving birth in earlier years. We also explore trends in the data which reveal directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bradford, in northern England, has attracted migrants since the nineteenth century. The most recent group, from Pakistan, began to arrive in the 1950s. There is now a three-generational Muslim community of Pakistani origin. The interaction of migration, ethnicity and deprivation in Bradford is considered by focusing on infant mortality. This is higher in Bradford than overall UK averages. The highest rates are in babies of first-generation migrant mothers. Migration theory, in particular, macro-economic models explaining choice to migrate, is critically reviewed. In addition to economic factors, family reconstitution is a key motivation for migration. The resulting characteristics of migrants and of the hybrid community they constitute display a complex clustering of risk factors relevant to infant health. An understanding of individual and social characteristics of the migrant community are needed to augment conventional theories of health disadvantage, which do not explain the inequality of life chances evident in this city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes combining traditional family reconstitution methods using parish registers with the notary documents found in the Contrôle des Actes in early modern France. This approach enables the construction of detailed life histories that can combine and link demographic events with economic transactions and provide new insights into life course, socioeconomic hierarchy, and migration. While certain trends connected to life course events can be discerned, peasant experience was diverse and varied and heads of household actively invested, consolidated, or moved in response to their particular circumstances. These were practical decisions based on the multiple options available in their community and within the larger region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an overview of the family reconstitution methodology of reconciling and centralizing data from historical parish records in British demographic research. The development and evolution of this technique of demographic analysis at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure is charted from the 1970s to the present. The theoretical paradigm of the method is discussed along with mention of several challenges and innovations in the practice of implementation.

Este artículo propone una lectura de ¡Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? a partir del problemático final configurado por el viaje de retorno de la abuela y su nieto mayor, por una parte, y, por otra, el reencuentro entre Gloria y su hijo Miguel con que concluye el relato. Esta reconciliación entre madre e hijo menor es interpretada como la reconstitución de un nuevo nucleo familiar que a la vez plantea el desmantelamiento de la maquinaria edípica del deseo y su reorientación hacia coordenadas no familiaristas ni de unidad de producción. La lectura que ofrezco de este cuarto lagometraje de Almodóvar propone a la vez una lectura del retorno al pueblo como la disolución de la simbólica ley del padre que la abuela había fomentado y Toni está por prolongar pero que Gloria y Miguel necesitan eliminar de su entorno para llevar a cabo su nuevo proyecto existencial.This article examines ¡What Have I Done to Deserve This? as a film whose intrinsic meaning depends to a large extent on the interpretation we give to its ambivalent and problematic ending. The analysis focuses on the sequences configured by the return of Blesa and Toni to the countryside and the reunification between Gloria and her younger son Miguel. I argue that this reconciliation can be interpreted as the reconstitution of a new, non-traditional family arrangement that requires the dismantling of the Oedipal desiring machine and the reorientation of desire towards nonfamilial coordinates or units of productivity. The reading that this paper proposes of Almodóvar's fourth feature film includes also a reinterpretation of the return journey to the countryside that Toni and his grandmother Blesa initiate. This return to the village is seen as the dissolution of the Law of the Father that Antonio's mother had been unwittingly fomenting and that Toni is about to prolong, but which Gloria and Miguel need to get rid of in order to see their existential projects fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Studies in both human and mouse indicate that mediators released by mast cells can lead to bronchoconstriction, and thus these are important effector cells in lifethreatening anaphylaxis. Much of our understanding of the various functions of mast cells emanates from the study of mice lacking these cells, particularly mice carrying mutations in the tyrosine kinase gene Kit. Definitive evidence for the role of mast cells in the altered immune response requires the demonstration that this response can be normalized by reconstitution of the mice with cultured bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMCs). While many mast cell niches can be restored with BMMCs, this has not been demonstrated for mast cells present in the airways of the lung, cells poised to mediate bronchoconstriction during allergic responses. Objective To determine if mast cell-deficient KitWsh/Wsh reconstituted lines are an appropriate model for the study of the role of these cells in bronchoconstriction associated with allergic responses. Methods KitWsh/Wsh mice were reconstituted with either whole bone marrow (WBM) or BMMCs and responses to IgE-mediated mast cell activation were determined; including systemic hypothermia, mediator release, and bronchoconstriction in anaesthetized, mechanically ventilated animals. Results Engraftment of KitWsh/Wsh mice with WBM and BMMCs results in reconstitution of the central airways with mast cells. While the treatment of the two groups of animals resulted in systemic changes when challenged with IgE/Ag in a model of passive anaphylaxis, bronchoconstriction was observed only in KitWsh/Wsh animals, which had received a bone marrow transplant. Conclusions While BMMCs can populate the lung, they cannot restore IgE/Ag-mediated bronchoconstriction to mast cell-deficient animals. This suggests that the mast cell population, which mediates this function, may be unique, and to fill this niche in the lung cells must undergo a specific developmental programme, one that is no longer available to cultured mast cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While records on historical population are available and do exist, the fact that they are so limited in nature is a critical problem. We applied the method of family reconstitution to a Korean household register to deal with these limitations. Based on family reconstitution from five successive registers, we calculated women''s age at first childbirth for each social status in two ways: “observed woman''s age” at first childbirth = woman''s current age–age of her first child, and “estimated woman''s age” at first childbirth, which uses linear regression analysis on the basis of positive association between women''s age and the age of their firstborn. Our results shed light on the effects of social status and cultural factors on the age at which women in pre-industrial Korea bore their first child. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article investigates marital patterns in the urban town of Vila do Conde, northwest Portugal, during the 19th century. The analysis, which is based on the application of the family reconstitution method, reveals differences in marital patterns between rural and urban settlements. It was observed that Vila do Conde displayed different patterns of marriage than those that have often been described for the northwestern region of Portugal, with an emphasis on lower levels of celibacy, as well as lower fertility rates. It was discovered that migration played a very important role in these dynamics. It is a fact that the increasing outflow of male emigrants had a distortion effect on the marriage market. Nevertheless, the influx of in-migrants to the town contributed to alleviate the adult male shortage and resulting gender imbalance, generating lower proportions of celibacy and higher levels of total fertility. Although several important publications have already identified demographic trends in many parishes of the region in focus, few have been concerned with urban parishes. This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the population dynamics of urban centres in northwest Portugal when set within the context of a number of the structural changes specific to that region and Portugal as a whole in the 19th century. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Social life in Japan has been historically orientated towards hierarchical networks of social integration starting in the family home and extending to the neighborhood, company, and nation. In the postwar period, households and life courses were largely fixed, mediated by company society, a standard breadwinner family model and an ascent up an owner-occupied housing ladder. The bursting of the economic bubble two decades ago, and the subsequent 'lost decade', disrupted established flows into employment, family life, and owner-occupation. We examine recent restructuring of life courses around the home which has become characteristic of social changes and a medium of individualization. The home, once ingrained with notions of the eternal Japanese family, has become a conduit of atomization for younger generations who have experienced radical shifts in social and economic conditions. Since the 1990s numbers of single-only and couple-only households have ballooned while marriage and fertility rates have declined. Although homeownership norms have persisted, new patterns of renting and single living in the city, or remaining in the family home as a 'parasite single', are increasing. We consider how the reconstitution of 'home' under more insecure housing and employment conditions is embedded with the reshaping of life courses, housing pathways, and patterns of urban space and living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SummaryThis paper explores the course of infant and childhood mortality in the Greek island of Paros from the end of the nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century. For this purpose the method of family reconstitution has been applied to two towns on the island. Official population statistics have been used to derive basic mortality estimates for the Cyclades and Greece as a whole. Reference to other studies concerning island mortality is also made. Hence, there appears the chance to compare insular with mainland mortality and realise that insular mortality presented some distinct features. It is shown that island populations presented lower mortality than the national average until the first decades of the twentieth century. However, by the 1950s Greece?s infant and childhood mortality had dropped to the same or even to lower levels than those of the islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the use of pauper letters as an evidence of the operation of the poor law in England. He cites some of the objections raised against the use of these letters, such as the difficulty of reading them. He states that family reconstitution studies indicate strongly that those who remained settled in a parish over their entire lives were a small minority. He asserts that these letters provide a unique window on the lives, experiences and feelings of the poor.

The article focuses on the significance of family reconstitution method of slave and free families in province of La Havana in Cuba. It investigates the behavior of marriages in the province's two plantations including San Rafael founded by Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Rafael Armenteros and San José Recuerdo owned by Jacinto González Larrinaga. Family reconstitution is considered to be extremely useful in establishing the presence, strength and essential of family.

As the field of forensic family law has become more empirical and in need of novel behavioral health services, it has become necessary to broaden the duties of practitioners, to clarify forensic roles, and to develop more comprehensive court orders. This article introduces the application of Forensically Informed Evaluations and Therapeutic Interventions in family court; a constellation of evaluations and interventions developed to better meet the needs of children and families during and after dissolution or reconstitution. These family court appointments also meet the growing demands of the court and contribute to the trend toward discriminative application of empirically informed behavioral health services in forensic family law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The homeostatic method, which was developed to reconstruct the number of inhabitants of a city or even a country in pre-statistical periods, has yet to receive much attention from demographic historians. Applied first to Amsterdam during the years from 1586 to 1865, the method has subsequently been used to compute the population of other places, including England from 1541 to 1871. The author reviews major schools of thought in historical demography and shows that the homeostatic method, with its emphasis on fertility regulated by marriages, logically extends some schools and is both simpler and more accurate than others. He then explains the method in detail, applying it to Dutch and English cases, and compares its estimates with those obtained through the use of other techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author considers three methods of counting maternal deaths, and hence of calculating maternal mortality levels, in the nineteenth century. The first method counts maternal deaths classified in contemporary statistical publications. The second method examines nineteenth-century death registers for records of maternal deaths. The third method identifies maternal deaths through family reconstitution. The author finds that each method, in isolation, leads to underestimating maternal mortality levels because maternal deaths were often misregistered or misclassified under nonmaternal causes and were often not associated with live, registered births, as required for family reconstitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the effects of grandmothers on child mortality. A study was carried out to investigate the possible interactions between grandparent survival, child mortality, and mother's fertility. In this study, statistical analyses were carried out to test the following three hypotheses: one, grandmothers reduce the risk of child deaths by reducing the risk of the mothers' deaths; two, grandmothers reduce the risk of child deaths directly by grand-mothering; three; grandmothers influence the interbirth intervals of their daughters by helping to wean grandchildren. Findings suggest a strong effect of maternal grandmother survival on seven cases of maternal survival but could not distinguish between probable causes, such as heritable factors, infectious disease, or lack of postnatal care normally provided by the maternal grandmother. In a logistic regression analysis, only the mother's and the maternal grandmother's survival were found to be significant predictors of child survival. Maternal grandmother's survival was found to influence child survival both via maternal survival and independent of maternal survival. Grandparent survival was not found to influence mean interbirth interval.

In the absence of vital registration, studies of the onset and early phases of the fertility transition in North America have been seriously hampered and yet the seemingly early timing of the decline, the multi-ethnic nature of the population and continuous flow of immigrants from Europe suggest that North America has much to offer to this debate. This paper is primarily methodological drawing on parallel data for the city of Montreal and surrounding region. By reconciling cross-sectional census measures of fertility using the own-child method (1901) with those derived from a longitudinal ten-year panel (1891-1901) using family reconstitution, it exposes some of the weaknesses and the potentials of the two methods most often currently used and the advantages of combining methods. Own-children measures of marital fertility are seriously affected by significant local differences in infant survival between rural and urban areas and between cultural groups as well as by residual effects of duration and timing of marriage, while small-scale longitudinal studies in complex environments cannot always render reliable results for all sub-populations nor can they necessarily be ‘scaled up’. They suggest that national and even regional averages of fertility may conceal large diversity, which in turn raises questions about the existence of any single transition with uniform characteristics and timing, or universal cause. Instead we argue different groups in different environments may actually have been fine-tuning their fertility behaviour to compensate for the differential effects of mortality through adjustments to both marriage and fertility within marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a project to link nineteenth century Scottish civil registration and census records, broadening and extending linking techniques with a new emphasis on using sets of individuals related through families, households, and neighbourhoods to establish links. The project aims to do for Scotland what cannot yet be done for England: to link the comprehensive civil register records of births, deaths and marriages in an area with individuals in the census returns covering the same area to form a reconstitution-like data set. The resulting data set will be richer than reconstitution however, due to the additional information in the Scottish sources (for example, maiden name is routinely given for mothers in civil registers, and birth records also provide parents' place of marriage); censuses yield information relating to household size and structure and also provide decennial observations of those individuals who do not experience any demographic event in the inter-censal period. The paper illustrates the linkage technique in the case of the Island of Skye, and speculates on the prospects for it's successful application to urban communities such as the lowland town of Kilmamock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) compiles life course data for the nineteenth and twentieth century population. Most of the data for the construction of life courses are extracted from the population registers that allow us to trace persons from the cradle to the grave. In this article, we will present the way how the HSN reconstructs raw material from the Dutch population registers into output files that can be used by researchers. This process is comprised of several phases, of which the most important is linking all different appearances of the same persons across all entries, dating all individual arrivals and departures, reconstituting households and adding individuals to these households, dating all events related to individuals and households, and finally outputting the data in a new data structure, at the same time removing all redundant information. Discussion of the HSN software is situated in the context of the character and main sources of the HSN database, the population registers, and the variables that can be distilled out of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The factors involved in rehabilitating an offender back into a family are discussed from the perspective of the assessment and treatment goals required for the offender. The sources of information available to use for assessment are described and the limitations and difficulties of each source are discussed. As a way of ensuring that all relevant factors are addressed, a model is presented which indicates which areas need to be assessed for each individual. This covers denial, social inadequacy, pro-offending attitudes and relapse prevention. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the timing and means of the fertility transition on the Greek island of Mykonos in the period 1879 to 1959. By combining the results of family reconstitution with oral evidence, an unusual insight into the pathways of the fertility transition of this island population is offered. The paper concludes by outlining a model of the adoption of fertility control, a model which sees the transition from high to low fertility as a transition from spacing to stopping, and from innovation of methods to innovation of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the state of historical demography in the U.S. Use of painstaking method; Pre-decline levels of marital fertility; Methodology of family reconstitution.

Assesses mortality patterns in Nantucket, Massachusetts from 1660-1850 using family reconstitution data. Advantages of isolation, low population density and economic prosperity enjoyed by the early population; Collective impact of endemic disorders on Nantucket death rates; Impact of increasing population density on fresh water supply.

The article examines the association between family structure and children's educational attainment. Further the article attempts to identify plausible explanations behind the educational disadvantage of children from separated families. Studying the case of Sweden, the authors report results for a country characterized by a generous and predominantly universal social policy, a relatively equal income distribution, and high labor market participation of women. Sweden has a reputation as a forerunner in the development of post-nuclear family structures, though the divorce rate (10.7 per 1,000 married women in 1988) is not dramatically different than in comparable nations. Because consensual unions are common in Sweden, however, statistics on marital disruptions underestimate the proportion of children who have experienced a family dissolution. The combination of labor market opportunities and social policy means that single parents in Sweden suffer less economic hardship than they do in several comparable Western nations.

Discusses a method for family reconstitution in Cambridge, England that makes use of an automatic record-linking program to source information such as occupation, residence and relatives' names. Problems with automatic record linking; Sorting of links between pairs of records of all types in descending order of confidence scores.

The article focuses on changes in the methodology and scope of population history before census taking was commonplace. It states that Anglican parish registers in England recorded baptisms instead of births and burials instead of deaths which allowed estimates of the totals of events but that birth and death rates would have a wide margin of error due to a lack of periodic counts of at-risk populations. It mentions that French historian Louis Henry developed the technique of family reconstitution in the 1950s-60s, which used record linkage to determine the life histories of all the members of a family through individual birth, marriage, and death records. It comments on the use of computers in family reconstitution to create demographic histories of communities.

Focuses on the condition of women and the family structure which are major determinants of a country's demographic situation. Effect of sociological determinants in the demographic situation; Conference held for family policies; Trends in fertility.