r~ 



98 THE SWEDISH CHURCH REGISTERS AND THE DEMOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE 



The weakest point in the Swedish census is, as already indicated, the infer* 

 mation respecting occupation. With the present highly developed and very chan* 

 geable specialization of work within all occupations, it is only by means of detail* 

 ed information supplied by those concerned, in oral conference with an enu* 

 merator*, that we can obtain a deeper insight into the life of trade, as in any 

 case was tried in Germany, The indispensable condition for this is a momentary, 

 real census*. Here a continuous registration of the changes of the population is 

 plainly not at all sufficient. 



In any case one cannot demand that the clergy, whose chief call lies in quite 

 another sphere of work, should be enjoined to obtain correct details concerning 

 the occupation of all the inhabitants in their parishes. At the census in 1910 an 

 attempt was made with the help of the assessments to obtain a somewhat better 

 material as to occupation than at the previous censuses. In 1910 one also for the 

 first time worked up the material respecting occupations according to age. An 

 attempt to arrive at the mortality in different occupations, in different groups of 

 ages, as is done in England, has not led to any trustworthy result. 



Taken as a whole the Swedish census, arranged as it is now, could not be 

 extended considerably. Thus, for example, returns touching the whole number of 

 children born in every existing marriage can not be demanded, as they would not 

 be founded upon current registration. A real census giving all such information, 

 besides concerning occupations and income, etc., is therefore required and should 

 be afterwards completed by compulsory introduction of family*registers, as is the 

 case in Wiirttemberg, i e. the registration of every marriage should be accompanied 

 by a family bulletin where all the demographical events in the family should be 

 registered with the same certificate as in the parish registers, and when the family 

 removes from one parish to another, this bulletin should be transferred as well. 

 Whereas now if one is not willing to burden oneself with a practically insur* 

 mountably difficult work one can only follow a family during the time its 

 different members live in the respective parishes, one could by such a means follow 

 it exactly in detail, even from the time when it was founded. And not least would 

 the removal registers, an institution peculiar to Sweden, here be of the greatest value. 



The keeping of the Swedish parish registers still rests in principle on the 

 instructions given in the Ecclesiastical Law of 1686. Since that time, in any case, 

 the keeping of birth, marriage, and death registers seems to have been regularly 

 practised over the whole kingdom, though in many varying forms. Before that 

 time such a continuous registration was considered a private matter for 'the cler* 

 gyman or in any case an affair that fell upon the bishops and cathedral chapters 

 to undertake, if they wanted. One of the earliest of such ordinances was issued 

 in 1608 for the archiepiscopal diocese of Uppsala. Its observance does not seem 

 to have been worth mentioning. But in the diocese of Vasteras, on the contrary, 

 after a similar ordinance had been issued in 1622 by the renowned JOHANNES Ruo> 

 ISECKIUS, the keeping of the parish registers was pursued, according to a form 

 which the bishop had printed and provided. Ever since that time the death 

 registers in that diocese have offered very much of demographical interest, (first 

 and foremost the information respecting the cause of death, by which means 

 epidemic diseases can be traced fairly accurately). In any case since the end of 



