Demographic Data for the Pre-Statistical Age (Late Sixteenth Century to 1870)

The article provides an overview of the historical organization of data collection on vital events and population in German territories during the pre-statistical era and briefly presents about a dozen related datasets. Data can be divided into the two categories of aggregate data on population and vital rates at the national, regional and community levels, and of nominative data at individual and household levels. The latter type of data is typically available only for individual communities or parishes. We illustrate the use of the datasets in published studies and point to directions for future research. The most important recent development concerns the increasing availability of indexed church records and online village genealogies, which offer a vast and little exploited potential for analysing the demographic patterns that prevailed prior to the onset of the demographic transition.