Chapter 2. The Baix Llobregat (BALL) Demographic Database, between Historical Demography and Computer Vision (nineteenth–twentieth centuries)

Abstract

Historical studies always need empirical evidence, and the enhancement of historical research in the «Big Data Revolution» (Ruggles, 2014), inspired additional need for large quantities of high quality data. Historical demography has always consistently used considerable amounts of data, depending on the technical developments of the moment (Billari and Zagheni, 2017). Many historical demographic databases have a long tradition, such as the Historical Samples of the Netherlands (HSN), the China Multigenerational Panel Dataset (CMGPD-LN); the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP), the Demographic Database at Umeå University (CEDAR), the Research Program in Historical Demography at Montreal University (PRDH), the Scanian Economic Demographic Database at Lund University (SEDD), among others (Cf Ruggles et al., 2011; Lee and Campbell, 2010; Mandemakers, 2002; Edvinsson, 2000; Dillon