Saturday, June 13, 2009

Database Size and Lifespan Revisited

On the first of this month I mentioned that my primary database had 1458 individuals in it. I also said I probably had enough unentered data to make that 2000.

Most of this unentered data came from a 694 individual register a cousin gave me from over 20 years of research on my paternal Cruvant branch of the tree. (One of the downsides of the Register numbering system is that it doesn't give numbers to spouses, so there are actually even more individuals in this document.)

Over the past two weeks I have entered all the data for descendants of my third great grandfather David Aron Kruvond. He did have two siblings whose descendants I haven't entered, but the information on those lines is sparse anyway. The size of the database is now 1951. So it was a pretty good estimate.

Of course, my cousin didn't type the Register by hand. She has her own database. I could have had her send me her GEDCOM, which I could have uploaded, and I would have had all her information in my database in a minute. But entering the vital statistics by hand helped me catch typographical errors I wouldn't have caught if I just imported all the data instantaneously. [I'm now going to ask her for the file, so I can have a separate database containing her extensive notes I didn't copy.]

For reasons that will become clear, I then began to wonder...

With the growth of my database in the past year, from 700 to almost 2000 individuals...are there any differences in the Lifespan Statistics I calculated a year ago.

(Numbers in parentheses below indicate value last year)

In my overall database, with now 1030 males and 921 females

Average Male Lifespan
60 (61)
Average Female Lifespan 62 (62)

This is nearly identical to what it was a year ago. It's interesting that there has been very little change here.

In my Cruvant branch, with 368 males and 367 females (an increase of 509 individuals from a year ago)

Average Male Lifespan 58 (68)
Average Female Lifespan 62 (70)

This is a significant drop, but not unexpected from what I have entered over the past two weeks. A large amount of this drop can be attributed to a high mortality in Lithuania between 1941-1943. I'm quite impressed we have all this information, but it is depressing to read repeatedly for cause of death 'townspeople with axes.' Part of me thinks I could have handled seeing the names of any of the death camps more easily than that repeated phrase.

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