The historical demography of the multigenerational family: Evidence from crowdsourced genealogies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-1393Keywords:
historical demography, multigenerational family, online genealogies, FamiLinx database, big dataAbstract
Objective: This research note reconstructs the historical demography of the multigenerational family from preindustrial colonial America (1700) up to the end of the Gilded Age (1910) in the territory of the present-day United States and selected European regions.
Background: Knowledge of the demography of multigenerational family ties is limited to the 20th and 21st centuries. By contrast, little is known about the preceding demographic history of the multigenerational family, especially continuity and change in multigenerational co-survivorship and exposure.
Method: Using retrospective family-tree data from FamiLinx, a genealogical dataset derived from a crowdsourced genealogy website, we estimate the supply of, and exposure to, multigenerational kin measured by the number of, and years of life shared with, parents and grandparents.
Results: Multigenerational supply and exposure increased in the US and all European regions, but changes were modest compared to the surge that followed in the 20th century. Historically, multigenerational kin availability was consistently higher in the US than in all European regions, although differences diminished from 1850 onward.
Conclusion: Substantial cross-continental differences marked the demographic-historical pathways leading to the modern multigenerational family, but these pathways had increasingly converged by the late 19th century.
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