ReadMe.txt Burial Counts 1528 to 1873 Documentation ---------------------------------------- About this data collection --------------------------- This data collection comprises burial counts per month and year for 621 English parishes, for varying periods between 1528 and 1873. It also includes burial counts per month and year subdivided into adult or child (derived from family relationships eg son, daughter) for all parishes in Leeds, Liverpool and also Birstall in Yorkshire West Riding. There are separate annual burial counts by age group for all London (as one entity), derived from London Bills of Mortality. Data for 404 of the 621 parishes are from R S Schofield's English population history database distributed with a special 1998 issue of the journal Local Population Studies, also available as UKDA SN 4491, Parish Register Aggregate Analyses (http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-4491-1). See also the related data collection Causes of Death and Ages 1578 to 1837, SN 854223 http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-854223. These data can be mapped using the CAMPOP England and Wales census parishes, townships and places GIS described at https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/occupations/datasets/catalogues/boundaries/ (last accessed April 2020) and also available without PAR1851_ polygon identifiers as UKDA SN 852232 http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-852232. Manifest -------- This data collection comprises this ReadMe file of documentation/metadata, and a further 9 files representing historical counts of burials in English parishes. There are 5 data files and 4 data dictionary files, all with variable names on the first line. The 5 data files are as follows: 1. 621burialscounts.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing counts of burials per month and year in 621 parishes, 183537 lines including variable names on first line. 2. birstlcaburialsadultchild.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing counts of burials per month/year for adults and children in Birstall and surrounding parishes, 1025 lines including variable names on first line. 3. leedsburialsadultchild.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing counts of burials per month/year for adults and children in Leeds and surrounding parishes, 2326 lines including variable names on first line. 4. livpoolburialsadultchild.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing counts of burials per month/year for adults and children in Liverpool and surrounding parishes, 2358 lines including variable names on first line. 5. londonbillsagecounts.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing counts of all London burials per year in age groups, 1728-1830, 104 lines including variable names on first line. The 4 data dictionary files are as follows: 1. 621parishdict.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing name, coverage dates and provenance set for all parishes, 622 lines including variable names on first line. 2. 621setdict.txt is a pipe-separated text file containing notes on the provenance of each set of parishes specified in 621parishdict.txt, 19 lines including variable names on first line. 3. parishpointGIS is a pipe-separated text file containing XY point coordinates of locations in these data for GIS use, 613 lines including variable names on first line. 4. parishpolygonspatialmatches is a pipe-separated text file containing references to GIS polygon identifiers for locations in these data from the CAMPOP England and Wales census parish, townships, and places GIS, 1638 lines including variable names on first line. Provenance ---------------- These files were created for a Wellcome Trust funded research project on Mortality, Migration and Medicalisation led by Richard Smith and Romola Davenport, reference 360G-Wellcome-103322_Z_13_Z, and its precursor pilot project led by Richard Smith on Short-term and spatial variations in infectious disease mortality, reference 360G-Wellcome-096504_Z_11_Z. These data were exported in delimited text format from an Access 2016 relational database compiled between 2012 and 2019 by Gill Newton at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (CAMPOP) from parish burial records. Some of these data represent a restructuring of digitised data held by CAMPOP, including those previously released as UKDA SN 4491, Parish Register Aggregate Analyses. Others, especially for Liverpool and Leeds, were newly abstracted and digitised by Gill Newton and Peter Kitson for the above pilot project. Structure of dataset -------------------------- This data collection comprises 5 data files and a further 4 data dictionaries representing metadata on parishes, sets of data, GIS point coordinates, and cross references to GIS polygons. These relate to the data files through the variables named parish, set, and urbangroup. All variables are described below. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Data file variables --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 621burialcounts.txt - monthly and annual counts of burials from parish registers 1538-1873. Relates to other files in this data collection through the common variable parish and/or, for towns represented in this collection by more than one parish, also to GIS related files through the common variable urbangroup. birstlcaburialsadultchild - monthly and annual counts of burials from Birstall and surrounding area parishes 1561-1837, divided into adult/child from family relationships. Relates to other files in this data collection through the common variable parish. leedsburialsadultchild - monthly and annual counts of burials from all Leeds and surrounding area parishes 1572-1837, divided into adult/child from family relationships. Relates to other files in this data collection through the common variable parish and also to GIS related files through the common variable urbangroup. livpoolburialsadultchild - monthly and annual counts of burials from all Liverpool and surrounding area parishes 1586-1873, divided into adult/child from family relationships. Relates to other files in this data collection through the common variable parish and also to GIS related files through the common variable urbangroup. Variables for the above four files (not all variables present in each, as indicated): ID – Integer – unique-within-file record identifier county - String - ancient county; same as 621parishdict.txt county parish – String – ecclesiastical parish/place; same as 621parishdict.txt parish urbangroup - String - name of whole town, for towns represented in this data collection by more than one parish. NB for GIS the urban centres of towns where all parishes were captured in their entirety (Leeds and Liverpool) are represented only at this level rather than as their individual sub-parishes, although peripheral parishes are separately represented. Same as urbangroup in parishpointGIS.txt and parishpolygonspatialmatches.txt and other files. interpol – Boolean – true if counts include interpolated values for missing data (621burialcounts only). Always false as this data collection contains only uninterpolated raw burial counts. year – Integer – four-digit year date of burial, in the Gregorian calendar adultchild - String - "CHILD" if number of burials represents the number of child burials, identified as those with a family relationship indicative of child status (eg son, daughter) or aged under 18 if ages are present and no relationship available; otherwise "ADULT" meaning number of burials represents the number of adult burials, whether assumed by default in the absence of any family relationship or from a stated family relationship indicative of adult status (eg wife). (birstlcaburialsadultchild, leedsburialsadultchild and livpoolburialsadultchild only) jan – String – January monthly count of burials feb - String - February monthly count of burials mar - String - March monthly count of burials apr - String - April monthly count of burials may - String - May monthly count of burials jun - String - June monthly count of burials jul - String - July monthly count of burials aug - String - August monthly count of burials sep - String - September monthly count of burials oct - String - October monthly count of burials nov - String - November monthly count of burials dec - String - December monthly count of burials all - String - whole year burial total notes - String - notes and comments (621burialcounts only) ------------------------------------------------- londonbillsagecounts.txt - annual counts of burials in London (as one entity) in 13 age groups and by sex, 1728-1830, from tabulations in J. Marshall: Mortality of the metropolis [...] 1629-1831 (London, pr. J. Haddon, 1832) londonbillsagecounts.txt variables: ID – Integer – unique-within-file record identifier year – Integer – four-digit year date of burial under2 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged under 2 years 2to5 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 2 years and under 5 years 5to10 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 5 years and under 10 years 10to20 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 10 years and under 20 years 20to30 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 20 years and under 30 years 30to40 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 30 years and under 40 years 40to50 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 40 years and under 50 years 50to60 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 50 years and under 60 years 60to70 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 60 years and under 70 years 70to80 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 70 years and under 80 years 80to90 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 80 years and under 90 years 90to100 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 90 years and under 100 years over100 - Integer - number of burials of persons aged over 100 years male - Integer - number of burials of males female - Integer - number of burials of females burials - Integer - total number of burials baptisms - Integer - total number of baptisms --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dictionary file variables --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 621parishdict.txt details the location, provenance and start/end dates of each parish/location in this data collection for which burial counts are available 621parishdict.txt variables: parish - String - abbreviated parish name and unique identifier for records/lines in this file representing locations with burial counts data. Same as parish variable in other files. fullparish - String - full name of ancient parish county - String - name of ancient county in which parish is situated. Same as county in other files. set - String - name of original set of data of which a parish is part, which is an indicator of provenance and reliability. For set details see 621setdict.txt urbangroup - String - name of whole town, for towns represented in this data collection by more than one parish. NB for GIS the urban centres of towns where all parishes were captured in their entirety (Leeds and Liverpool) are represented only at this level rather than as their individual sub-parishes, although peripheral parishes are separately represented. Same as urbangroup in parishpointGIS.txt and parishpolygonspatialmatches.txt and other files. burstart - Integer - earliest four-digit Gregorian calendar year from which burial counts have been abstracted for this parish burend - Integer - latest four-digit Gregorian calendar year from which burial counts have been abstracted for this parish ------------------------------------- 621setdict.txt indicates the provenance and reliability of sets of burial counts forming the component parts of this data collection 621setdict.txt variables: set - String - name of original set of data to which parish register-based burial counts in this data collection belong. Same as set variable in 621parishdict.txt. There are 18 values. "404" designates counts from 404 parishes originally used in Wrigley and Schofield's 'Population History of England' and previously released as UKDA SN 4491. The other sets are newly released data from various sources as described in notes. notes - String - brief details of provenance, origin and reliability of a given set of burial counts in this data collection ------------------------------------- parishpointGIS.txt gives XY point coordinates for locations in this data collection for GIS use parishpointGIS.txt variables: pointID - Integer - unique-within-file record identifier parish - String - abbreviated parish name and parish level location identifier (but see also urbangroup below). Same as parish in 621parishdict.txt, 621burialcounts.txt and other files. urbangroup - String - whole town name and identifier for towns represented in this data collection by more than one parish. NB Leeds and Liverpool urban centres are represented in this file only at town level rather than as individual parishes, but their peripheral parishes are separately represented; other towns are represented in this file both as their constituent parishes and as whole towns. Same as urbangroup in 621parishdict.txt, 621burialcounts.txt and other files. x - Double - X coordinate of parish/town point in metres y - Double - Y coordinate of parish/town point in metres xdeg - Double - X coordinate of parish/town point in in decimal degrees ydeg - Double - Y Coordinate of parish/town point in decimal degrees ------------------------------------- parishpolygonspatialmatches.txt links parishes in this data collection to polygons in the CAMPOP England and Wales census parish township place GIS parishpolygonspatialmatches.txt variables: matchID - Integer - unique-within-file record identifier parish - abbreviated parish name and parish level location identifier in this data collection (but see also urbangroup below). Same as parish in 621parishdict.txt, 621burialcounts.txt and other files urbangroup - whole town name and identifier in this data collection for towns represented in this data collection by more than one parish. NB Leeds and Liverpool urban centres are represented only as whole towns rather than individual parishes, but their peripheral parishes are separately represented; other towns are represented in this file both as their constituent parishes and as whole towns. Same as urbangroup in 621parishdict.txt, 621burialcounts.txt and other files. PAR1851_ - CAMPOP England and Wales census parish township place GIS polygon identifier ------------------------------------ Written by Gill Newton, CAMPOP, March-April 2020