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The article presents an analysis of the demographic structure of the Roman Catholic population in the County of Proszowice on the basis of the censuses carried out in the years 1790–1792 by the Civil-Military Order Commission [Polish: Komisja Porządkowa Cywilno-Wojskowa] of the Cracow Voivodeship. Thanks to the available sources it is possible to reconstruct the population of villages and towns of a big county of the Cracow Voivodeship, according to their sex, age and marital status. It is also possible to compare those results with other regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The article deals with the question of using the censuses carried out by the Civilian-Military Order Commission of the Cracow Voivodeship as a source for demographic research exemplified by the Proszowice County. The censuses were conducted in the years 1790–1792 and were not tax character, hence they are commonly considered to be more precise and reliable than the ones conducted earlier. The article presents the specific character of the sources of that kind and the resulting difficulties such as passing over part of the population, terminological complexities, unclear division into households. A lot of attention has been paid to the assessment of the credibility of historical sources, with such indicators as the percentage of the youngest children and old people in the population or the male sex ratio in newborn babies. The analyses of age heaping has been carried out with the use of the of Whipple’s and Myers’ indexes. The conclusions indicate that the censuses – especially in the parts concerning age analysis – turn out to be a problematic sources, yet some of their short comings might be overcome when appropriate statistical methods have been applied. Frequent age heaping is not decisive factors in the credibility of the census; what should be decisive is the analysis of the whole – the amount of the information in the census, diligence and accuracy, and compatibility with other sources, e.g. the Poniatowski census of 1787.

The article deals with the distribution of population in the county of Proszowice (within the Voivodeship of Cracow) at the end of the 18th century based on the censuses of the Civil-Military Order Commission of the Cracow Voivodeship. The censuses in question, in spite of the fact that a few parishes were passed over, depicted the situation quite precisely. That is why it was possible to carry out an analysis not only of the overall number of population in particular places and parishes but also of the distribution of Jews, gentry and clergy. A special attention was paid to the ownership structure in the county, the surface of parishes, the density of population and the urbanisation of the county. The GIS (Geographic InformationSystem) tools and statistical methods were used in the analysis.