Representativeness is crucial for inferring demographic processes from online genealogies: Evidence from lifespan dynamics.

ABSTRACT: Crowdsourced online genealogies have an unprecedented potential to shed light on long-run population dynamics, if analyzed properly. We investigate whether the historical mortality dynamics of males in familinx, a popular genealogical dataset, are representative of the general population, or whether they are closer to those of an elite subpopulation in two territories. The first territory is the German Empire, with a low level of genealogical coverage relative to the total population size, while the second territory is The Netherlands, with a higher level of genealogical coverage relative to the population. We find that, for the period around the turn of the 20th century (for which benchmark national life tables are available), mortality is consistently lower and more homogeneous in famili

SUBMITTER: Stelter R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8915999 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature