State Views and Local Views of Population: Linking and Comparing Genealogies and Household Registers in Liaoning, 1749-1909

Most micro-level quantitative studies of Chinese society rely on individual level data from locally produced patrilineal genealogies or from state generated household registers. Stevan Harrell, Ts' ui-jung Liu, Ted Telford and Zhongwei Zhao and others use genealogies to estimate trends in demographic rates over the very long term, especially for south eastern, south central and southern China. 1 We and Arthur Wolf and his and our collaborators use Qing dynastic (1640–1911) and Japanese colonial (1905–1945) household registers from ...