Schemas
There are two kinds of schemas within historical demography. IPUMS-USA, IPUMS-International, MOSAIC, and NAPP were developed to standardize census data. IDS, LINKS-gen, and PiCo are efforts to standardize historical data from other types of historical sources, such as the civil registry, militia registers, parish registers, population registers, slave registers, or tax registers. All schemas cater to a very specific public, as they have been developed for projects with strong institutional boundaries.
Census schemas (IPUMS, MOSAIC, NAPP)
There are three schemas to describe census data. The driving force behind processing census data is IPUMS in Minnesota. In 1991, they started providing "common-format extracts" with common codes and constructed variables. In 1999, IPUMS joined up with scholars from Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, Scotland in the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP). A similar international census comparison project took place in the early 2010s at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. The MPIDR schema, called MOSAIC, standardized census data from the 1700s until 1950 for 18 regions in Europe.
| Theme | Variables | IPUMS-International | MOSAIC | NAPP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geography | Country code Place Region Urban-rural status | CNTRY URBAN | country place region urban | CNTRY - - URBAN |
| Household | Group quarter status Household size Household weight | GQ PERSONS WTHH | gq hhsize hhwt | GQ NUMBERHH HHWT |
| Identifier | Enumeration Household Person | SAMPLE SERIAL PERNUM | id_enum id_hhold id_pers | SAMPLE SERIAL PERNUM |
| Individual | Age Literacy Marital status Occupational title OCCHISCO Presence at enumeration Relation to household head Religion Sex Weight | AGE LIT MARST - OCCHISCO RESIDENT - RELIG SEX WTPER | age lit marst occupan occhisco presence relate relig sex perwt | AGE LIT MARST OCCSTRN OCCHISCO RESIDENT - RELIGION SEX PERWT |
| Person Name | First name Last name | - - | fname lname | NAMEFRST NAMELAST |
| Provenance | - | - | - | - |
| Quality indicators | Age Household Relation to household head Marital status Sex | - - - - - | qage qhhold qrelate qmarst qsex | QAGEGB - QRELGB QMARSTGB QSEXGB |
| Source | Enumeration type Enumeration year | - YEAR | enumtype year | - YEAR |
Historical person data (IDS, LINKS-gen, PiCo)
IDS, LINKS-gen, and PiCo are efforts to standardize different types of historical person data. Of these schemas, LINKS-gen is by far the most limited and standardized data in two tables that are ready for statistical analysis. IDS has been around since 2009 and explicitly states for which point or period in time historical information is valid. PiCo was developed in 2023 by the Center for Family History in the Netherlands as a means to store information on persons registrations as well as concomitant records and person reconstructions.
| Theme | Variables | IDS | LINKS-gen | PiCo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Baptism | BAPTISM_DATE | - | - |
| Birth | BIRTH_DATE | B_date | schema:birthDate | |
| Date | TIMESTAMP | Date | - | |
| Death | DEATH_DATE | D_date | schema:deathDate | |
| Divorce | DIVORCE_DATE | - | - | |
| First observation | START_OBSERVATION | - | - | |
| Funeral | FUNERAL_DATE | - | - | |
| Last observation | END_OBSERVATION | LastEntryDate | - | |
| Marriage | MARRIAGE_DATE | M_date_1 to 5 | - | |
| Marriage announcement | MARRIAGE_PROCLAMATION_DATE | - | - | |
| Stillbirth | STILLBIRTH_DATE | - | - | |
| Geography | Baptism | BAPTISM_LOCATION | - | - |
| Birth | BIRTH_LOCATION | B_location | schema:birthPlace | |
| Death | DIVORCE_LOCATION | D_location | schema:deathPlace | |
| Divorce | DEATH_LOCATION | - | - | |
| Funeral | FUNERAL_LOCATION | - | - | |
| Marriage | MARRIAGE_LOCATION | M_location_1 to 5 | - | |
| Marriage announcement | MARRIAGE_PROCLAMATION_LOCATION | - | - | |
| Place | - | Location | schema:address | |
| Stillbirth | STILLBIRTH_LOCATION | - | - | |
| Household | Relation between individuals | RELATION | - | - |
| Identifier | Father | Id_I_2 | Id_father | schema:parent |
| Household | Id_C | - | - | |
| Mother | Id_I_2 | Id_mother | schema:parent | |
| Partner | Id_I_2 | Id_partner_1 to 5 | schema:spouse | |
| Person | Id_I_1 | Id_person | schema:identifier | |
| Individual | Age | - | Age | pico:hasAge |
| Age in years | AGE_YEARS | - | - | |
| Age in month | AGE_MONTHS | - | - | |
| Age in weeks | AGE_WEEKS | - | - | |
| Age in days | AGE_DAYS | - | - | |
| Age at death | - | D_age | - | |
| Age at last observation | - | LastEntryAge | - | |
| Age at marriage | - | M_age_1 to 5 | - | |
| Alive / Dead | ALIVE | - | pico:deceased | |
| Civil status | CIVIL_STATUS | - | - | |
| Died before registration | - | D_deadonregistration | - | |
| Father's age at birth | - | B_age_father | - | |
| HISCO | OCCUPATION_HISCO | HISCO | - | |
| Legitimacy at birth | LEGITIMACY | - | - | |
| Mother's age at birth | - | B_age_mother | - | |
| Nationality | NATIONALITY | - | - | |
| Number of marriages | - | Marriages_N | - | |
| Occupational title | OCCUPATION | Occupation | schema:hasOccupation | |
| Religion | RELIGION | - | pico:hasReligion | |
| Role | - | - | pico:hasRole | |
| Sex | SEX | Sex | schema:gender | |
| Signature available | SIGNATURE | - | - | |
| Twin | MULTIPLE_BIRTH | Twin | - | |
| Person name | First name | FIRST_NAME | - | schema:givenName |
| Last name | LAST_NAME | - | schema:familyName | |
| Prefix | PREFIX_LAST_NAME | - | pnv:prefix | |
| Title | TITLE | - | schema:honorificPrefix schema:honorificSuffix | |
| Provenance | Creator | - | - | prov:wasGeneratedBy |
| Original source | - | - | prov:hadPrimarySource | |
| Person observations | - | - | prov:wasDerivedFrom | |
| Quality indicators | Birth certificate available | - | B | - |
| Death certificate available | - | M | - | |
| Marriage certificate available | - | D | - | |
| Parental marriage certificate available | - | M_parents | - | |
| Person name did not match, but parental names and time range did | - | Postlink_D | - | |
| Source | Archive | - | - | schema:holdingArchive |
| Collection | - | - | schema:isPartOf | |
| Date | - | - | schema:dateCreated | |
| Digital location | - | - | schema:url | |
| Last observation | - | LastEntryCert | - | |
| Name | - | - | schema:name | |
| Place | - | - | schema:contentLocation | |
| Primary source | - | - | prov:hadPrimarySource | |
| Record type | NAME | - | - |
