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Copyright of Quarterly of the History of Material Culture / Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej is the property of Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Research conducted into the demography of the Kingdom of Kongo some forty years ago, employing baptismal statistics left by missionaries, has been in need of revision thanks to challenges by more recent scholarship. This article revises the estimated population of Kongo by addressing these challenges, drawing on newly discovered documentary sources. Using this new evidence, the estimate for the kingdom's population in the mid-seventeenth century has been elevated from 509,000 to around 790,000. The original article's claims about levels of fertility and mortality have been retained. The article also addresses questions concerning the validity of missionary statistics and the impact of the slave trade, which was small before 1700 but then increasingly large thereafter, reaching very high levels by the early nineteenth century. While a quantitative estimate of the later population is not possible given the limitations of sources for this period, it is likely that the population of the kingdom fell as slave exports peaked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Onomastica is the property of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech Language Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The generalization of the registration of baptism and marriage in the Catholic countries is shown to be the result of a process in which France used the authority of the Council of Trent to impose on the whole Church a system of public registration it had started to implement through temporal law at home in 1539, so that the clerics in charge of the registration be subject to canonical penalties if they failed to comply. The registration of baptism and marriage was integrated into the Decree on the Reformation of Marriage that France maneuvered to impose on the Church to curb clandestine marriages which had dire effects on estate planning in France, given the peculiarities of its inheritance and matrimonial law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the law regarding efforts of apostolic people and groups to have their Church baptismal records deleted in Europe from the 1970s through the early 21st century, including in regard to Catholic Church autonomy and personal data protection. The role that the Code of Canon Law plays in governing baptismal registers is discussed.

Current article deals with the family in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, with special focus on legitimacy in the town of Paracatu between 1761 and 1849, a region scarcely touched by historiography. Historical sources include the legal codes on the family published in the Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia and in the Phillipine Ordinations, and especially in the baptism registers of the parish of Paracatu. Discourse Analysis is employed to question the norms and their employment and to understand the working strategies of a society seeped in slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current analysis focuses on weddings and baptisms in the parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Albuquerque, province of Mato Grosso, Brazil, prior to the Paraguay War (1864-1870). The war is generally considered a watershed in regional historiography even though few studies are extant on the southern frontier with Bolivia before 1864. Research shows that activities existed in the parish featuring complex social and family relationships among the inhabitants, reported in ecclesiastical records such as wedding and baptism registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The examination of the Sé parochial records of baptisms, marriages and deaths, between the mid- sixteenth and the mid-eighteenth century, based on Norberta Amorim's methodology of parish reconstitution, enabled the analysis of the population's demographic behaviour and also an approach to the parish's social reality, based on qualitative data, such as positions, condition and professions. Located in a central area, close to the «Ribeira» (literally, the riverside) and the Tagus, the Sé (parish named after the Lisbon See) was one of the first urbanized zones in Lisbon and one of its largest parishes. According to Cristóvão Rodrigues de Oliveira, its population stood at six thousand one hundred eighty-seven and seven hundred and eighteen neighbours, in 1551. In 1620, Frei Nicolau de Oliveira, presented it as the sixth largest parish in Lisbon and the largest of the seven parishes of the Cerca Moura. Based on demographic analysis, we found that it was an urban parish with a strong mortality and mobility, understandable due to it location near the Lisbon port, at a time that the capital was experiencing a golden age, derived from the maritime trade of the Discoveries. Our study also revealed the existence of low average ages for males and females at the time of their first marriage and that a large percentage of marriages involved spouses who had not been born in the parish. They came from several parts of the country, especially from the north, as well as from abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses baptismal records from the Italian city of Parma from 1609 to 1637 to chart the sex ratio of male and female infants at baptism. This article measures the Parman sex ratio against the natural sex ratio at birth for live-born infants, as determined by Praven Visaria, and offers preliminary findings that indicate that married couples used infanticide as a means of controlling family size and sex in seventeenth-century Parma. The 28 years studied encompass both relatively strong economic and agricultural years as well as a variety of crises. By selecting a period with both good and bad economic years it is possible to see if parents behaved differently as their household conditions varied. Further, dividing the approximately 30,000 baptisms by rural and urban jurisdictions and familial socio-economic status makes visible parental recourse to infanticide through unnatural ratios of males and females within different segments of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of research on the customary amount of time between birth and baptism in Lancashire, England, from the mid-17th century to the early 20th century. It is based on the records of 68 Anglican parishes, which provide continuous annual data for that time frame. It was found that birth to baptism intervals were stable during the 17th century, but began to increase in later centuries. Factors which affected baptismal timing are discussed. These include epidemics, which tended to shorten the interval, or increases in population, which generally lengthened it.

The article discusses the impact of the 1783 and 1785 Stamp Duty Acts on Scottish vital registration. The author explains that Great Britain introduced several new taxes during the late 18-century in order to fund the several different wars it was involved in simultaneously. The author states that the Stamp Duty Acts caused rich and poor people alike to be taxed the same amounts. The acts levied a fee for every baptism, marriage, and burial occurring within an Anglican parish. The author explains that because of this fee, most clergymen quit keeping records.

Even though non-emergency private baptism became a debated issue in seventeenth-century England, the practice, as has been commonly believed, did not become a trend all over the country. By taking a close look at several seventeenth-century baptismal registers of churches in and outside London, this article shows that non-emergency private baptism was the choice taken mostly by well-to-do families living in London. As a contrast, rural parishes still adhered strictly to the Prayer Book, by administering private baptism only in emergency. Therefore, this article maintains that non-emergency private baptism was more of an exception than the common practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the examination of a set of baptismal records from Aveiro, a coastal town between Lisbon and Porto in northern Portugal, this study explores the ways in which women were identified in relation to their families and community, and in relation to their economic occupations. The findings show that of the approximate 2,600 names of parents and godparents who were noted in the parish registers in the years between 1624 and 1638, the vast majority of them were not provided with a work label. Yet, the inconsistent manner in which women and men were identified suggests that what the church scribe deemed worthy of note did not necessarily reflect the views of the broader community. Although officialdom generally relegated women to their marital or family links, it was possible for a woman to acquire an occupational status of her own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the use of parish archives from the colonial church of Magdalena Jaltepec as sources of historical information for the region of La Mixteca, in Mexico. The author presents transcriptions of several entries from parish baptismal records of the 18th century and discusses their historical-philological value as complementary sources. He also comments on their value for better interpreting place names used in manuscripts, monuments and codices of the prehispanic period.

With regard to the declaration of apostasy, the Audiencia Nacional has established the process of placing a marginal annotation in the book of baptism instead of cancelling the baptismal record. This is confirmed by the criteria of the resolution of the Spanish Agency for Data Protection, appealed by the Archdioceses of Valencia and of Madrid. The author deems that the conflict between the Agency and the involved dioceses should not have happened because the established solution is within the Orientations of the Spanish Episcopal Conference to cater to the petitions of defection of the Church through a formal act. However, certain confusion is observed with regard to the subject. It is but fitting to make an effort to distinguish the legal treatment regarding the abandonment of the Church in the exercise of religious freedom and the protection of privacy under the Organic Act of protection of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By any measure, the population of Florence grew enormously from the later twelfth to the early fourteenth century. This article summarises the historiography on Florentine demographic change during the two centuries before the Black Death, and it carefully considers the data provided by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani as well as the various merits and demerits of the information on which he evidently based his writings. It also establishes the approximate parameters of demographic change at Florence within the context of regional demographic movements in Tuscany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the possible usefulness of the baptismal and marriage registers to sociologists in the U.S. Parish records constitute a rich, although, oddly enough, a relatively unexplored source of data for the social scientist. Every Catholic parish must maintain certain official records on parish life. The general law of the Church imposes on each pastor the obligation of recording all baptisms, confirmations, marriages and deaths in his parish, in addition to maintaining up-to-date census information on his parishioners. As of 1958, Catholic sociologists are reasonably familiar with the possibilities of parish and census and survey material for research purposes. There is one technical possibility not usually emphasized, that is, an up-to-date parish census that provides the social investigator with a made-to-order option for sampling purposes. Whatever the defects of the usual parish census information, these records can be invaluable in that they provide names and addresses for Catholic household units. The procedure proposed is only applicable in parishes with reasonably stable populations. Unfortunately for research students, entries in both the baptismal and marriage books are listed in chronological sequence, not according to families. Baptismal entries for the children of a particular set of parents do not appear together in the register but are spread throughout it. Name indexes, commonly attached to each baptismal and marriage book, are useful in locating the scattered members of each family, yet considerable detailed labor is still required of the investigator in reconstructing family genealogies.

The "Brandywine" population of Southern Maryland is a tri-racial hybrid group which manifests many of the physical and social characteristics common to other known isolates located throughout the eastern part of the United States. This paper will be concerned only with the mate selection behavior of group members for the period 1820-1956, with special emphasis on their endogamous-exogamous marriage patterns. The analysis which follows is based on marriage information contained in the written records of nineteen separate parishes in Charles County, Prince Georges County, and the southeast section of the District of Columbia. The discussion which follows is based, however, on only 1752 marriage records. The author has no reason to believe that these exclusions biased the results significantly. Baptismal records are used here only in a supplementary capacity. Some of the interpretations proposed later in the paper are based upon the writer's interview experience with members of the group, as well as upon the data from church records. On the basis of the evidence presented it can be predicted that the Brandywine group will very probably remain a racial "island" for some time to come. As an island it will continue to be linked by the bridge of intermarriage with the mainland on both sides, i.e. with African Americans and whites.

The author presents his response to scholar Alan Downie's essay "Defoe's Birth" arguing against his conclusion that a 1644 baptism record was that of Daniel Foe, or Defoe, the writer and polemicist. He argues against Downie's claim that Defoe was the son of James Foe, suggesting instead he was a nephew.

The author argues on the real name of English-born journalist Joachim Hayward Stocqueler to counter the claim of writer Anne Lohrli, in an article appeared in "Notes and Queries" in 1986, that J.H. Siddons is not a pseudonym but his true name. Topics discussed include basis of Lohrli for her claim which is a letter from his son, Frederick Lincoln Siddons, baptismal record of Stocqueler's name at the Portuguese Embassy Chapel in London, England, and his father's name which is a Stocqueler.

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.