THE SWEDISH CHURCH REGISTERS 

 AND THE DEMOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE 



BY 



Docent K. ARVID EDIN 



UPPSALA 



THE OFFICIAL SWEDISH DEMOGRAPHICAL STATISTICS, IN 

 contrast to those of most other countries, exhibit the peculiarity that they 

 rest, all the way through, on a continuous, as far as possible, closed ecde* 

 siastical record«keeping, comprised in the so«called parish registers (Jorsamlings= 

 bockerna, in older times catechetical meetings registers), where, with complete names, 

 with exact dates — registered at the same time in the birth*, marriage*, death*, 

 and removal registers — one can follow every person's demographical fate, as long 

 as he lived in the parish: birth or entrance into the parish, with information on 

 the parish of birth and that of removal, civil status, and eventually year and date 

 of marriage, entrance into or withdrawal from marriage, the birth or death of 

 children (removal from or entrance into the parish), removal, with the name of 

 the parish, or death. The church registers also, of course, contain information 

 respecting occupation; their value here, however, stands far behind what it does 

 from a pure demographical point of view; the parish registers also contain in» 

 formation respecting defects, race (for example Lapp), religion, and nationality, 

 and eventually sentence of punishment. 



The recurrent censuses of the people rest upon the returns given in the 

 parish registers for the 31st of December in all years ending with 0, the last 

 being thus 1920. Especially respecting their completeness and their exactness con« 

 cerning age, they may probably by considered unique. By means of more rigorous 

 regulations as to the taking out and issue of certificates for removal — high fines fojr 

 neglecting to report removal within a short time of respite, measures to ensure that 

 entrance into one parish shall be brought to coincide as far as possible with removal 

 from another parish — and by arranging that the non*existence of persons, about 

 whom it has not been possible for a long time — since 1894 during three con» 

 secutive assessments (»mantalsskrivningar») — to obtain any information as to 

 their actual presence in a parish from which they have not taken out a certificate 

 for removal, shall be notified in the registers (the parish registers and the registers 

 of non*existence), the closed keeping of the parish registers has during the last gene* 

 ration been brought to the highest possible perfection. Special certainty has been 

 gained that persons cannot — as not seldom happens in Finland, where the keep* 

 ing of the parish registers has been neglected and not as in Sweden altered to 

 suit the needs of the time — during any longer period of time live only a sta* 

 tistical life. The assessment is the Swedish equivalent to the »momentary, real 

 (actual) census* (on oral statements) taken in foreign countries; the parish registers 

 must be corrected and completed yearly in connection with the assessment. It 



