For the recent period - beginning in the early nineteenth century in most European countries, and later in the rest of the world - historical demographers make use of data collected by governments, including censuses and vital statistics.
In 1749 the first population census covering the whole country was conducted in the kingdom of Sweden, including today's Finland.
[2] Historical analysis has played a central role in the study of population, from Thomas Malthus in the eighteenth century to major twentieth-century demographers such as Ansley Coale and Samuel H. Preston.
[3] In recent years, new research in historical demography has proliferated owing to the development of massive new population data collections, including the Demographic Data Base in Umeå, Sweden,[4] the Historical Sample of the Netherlands,[5] and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS).
According to Willigan and Lynch, the main sources used by demographic historians include archaeological methods, parish registers starting about 1500 in Europe, civil registration records, enumerations, national census beginning about 1800, genealogies and family reconstruction studies,[6] population registers,[7] and organizational and institutional records.