English population history from family reconstitution: Summary results 1600–1799

A number of family reconstitution studies have been carried out in England in recent years under the aegis of the SSRC Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. For this article the data from 13 such reconstitutions were pooled to enable the chief fertility, mortality and nuptiality characteristics of the population to be calculated (there is reason to suppose that the pooled data reflect national trends fairly closely). Results are presented for half-century time periods, 1600–49 to 1750–99. Marital fertility changed remarkably little over the two centuries but there were major changes in nuptiality and also substantial changes in mortality.