DOI: 10.3886/icpsr35070.v2
title: Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts, 1630-1750
title: Version 2

description: The data are drawn from 28 families who were the first permanent European settlers in Andover, Massachusetts, and their progeny for three generations, reconstituted by Philip J. Greven for his PhD dissertation, <em>Four Generations: A Study of Family Structure, Inheritance, and Mobility in Andover, Massachusetts, 1630-1750</em> (Harvard University, 1965). Greven used manuscript records of vital events, printed volumes of vital records, and published genealogies, supplemented with municipal and church records, gravestones, court records, and family records, following the methods developed in previous French and English work (e.g. Fleury, M. and L. Henry, <em>Nouveau manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancient</em> (1965) and Wrigley, E.A, "Family Reconstitution," in E.A. Wrigley, ed. <em>An Introduction to English Historical Demography</em> (1966). Family reconstitution is a method for studying demographic behavior in the absence of modern censuses and vital registration, providing for both observation of demographic events as well as the population and time at risk. The data were collected to study population, land and the family for four generations in Andover, Massachusetts during the 17th and 18th centuries. The data include information on 455 marriages and 2,727 children, some of whom also appear as adults in the marriage records. The data on couples focus on demographic details for mothers and fathers, including birth, baptism, marriage, and death dates, and residence. The data on children include demographic information for the child, as well as their own marriages. Not all families have complete information. Greven's original Family Reconstitution Records were transcribed at ICPSR.
description: The data were collected to study population, land, and the family for four generations in Andover, Massachusetts during the 17th and 18th centuries.
description: The data are the 28 families who were the first permanent European settlers in Andover, Massachusetts, and their progeny for three generations, reconstituted by Philip J. Greven for his PhD dissertation using manuscript records of vital events, printed volumes of vital records, and published genealogies, supplemented with municipal and church records, gravestones, court records, and family records, and following the methods developed in previous French (M. Fleury and L. Henry) and English work (E.A. Wrigley).
description: The data are not weighted.
description: The data were built from the first permanent European settlers, and their descendants were followed for four generations. The methodology and basis for the sampling are discussed in Chapter 1 of Philip J. Greven, <em>Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts</em> (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1970).
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Andover Parents Data DS2: Andover Kids Data DS3: IDS Individual Table DS4: IDS Individual to Individual Table DS5: IDS Metadata DS6: IDS Context Table DS7: IDS Context to Context Table DS8: IDS Individual to Context Table
description: The original European settlers of Andover, Massachusetts and their descendants. Smallest Geographic Unit: Town
description: record abstractsICPSR is distributing the Andover family demography data in two formats: (1) as a standard ICPSR full product suite (including ASCII data files, setup files, and SPSS, SAS, and Stata data files) with datasets in rectangular format; and (2) as Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) formatted files. The IDS formatted files are included to facilitate analyses of the longitudinal data contained within this collection. Fileset 5 is an IDS metadata file. For a detailed overview of the IDS table composition, please see the ICPSR Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) Manual.The ICPSR Codebook features variable descriptions and frequencies for Part 1: Andover Parents Data and Part 2: Andover Kids Data. Parts 3 through 8 are Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) formatted tables and associated documentation, and are not represented in the Variable Description and Frequencies section of the ICPSR Codebooks.The Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) Manual includes descriptions for all IDS table types, including the <em>INDIVIDUAL</em> table, the <em>INDIVIDUAL to INDIVIDUAL</em> table, the <em>CONTEXT</em> table, the <em>INDIVIDUAL to CONTEXT</em> table, and the <em>CONTEXT to CONTEXT</em> table.