The 1789 Life Table of Edward Wigglesworth

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Abstract
Systematic demographic analysis of early America has been neglected until quite recently. As the interest in and need for demographic data on pre-1800 America have increased during the last five years, efforts have been made to remedy this situation.The most recent studies are utilizing such new techniques as family reconstitution to avoid the problems created by the lack of reliable census data and vital statistics. But these techniques yield results very slowly, and in any case their results are subject to methodological limitations that make it necessary to check them against larger aggregates. For these reasons we need to reexamine the usefulness and accuracy of earlier studies on colonial population that were based on aggregate data. Unfortunately, this latter task has not been adequately carried out during the recent burst of activity among demographers of early America.

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