100 THE SWEDISH CHURCH REGISTERS AND THE DEMOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE 



of great interest, so much the more so as the Table Archives in these points do 

 not give sufficient guidance. The combination of civil status with age and sex 

 was first introduced into the Swedish census of 1870. Gustav Sundbarg's brilliant 

 attempt to effect such a hypothetical combination for the time between 1750 and 

 1780 can naturally never be anything more than a hypothesis. His assumption 

 that marriage^fecundity during the whole of this time underwent only casual 

 variations and no secular evolution, seems to me — on account of the certainly 

 as indicated above, much too insufficiently worked up material from the diocese 

 of Vasteras — to be somewhat doubtful. But on the other hand Sundbarg is 

 certainly right in his assertion that there are errors in the tables respecting division 

 of age and sex of the population, especially for the earlier ages. 



After the Provincial Archives were established at the beginning of this century, 

 the possibility of studying the parish registers has been very much facilitated. 



