Methods are described for deriving personal and family histories of birth, marriage, procreation, ill health and death, for large populations, from existing civil registrations of vital events and the routine records of ill health. Computers have been used to group together and »link« the separately derived records pertaining to successive events in the lives of the same individuals and families, rapidly and on a large scale. Most of the records employed are already available as machine readable punchcards and magnetic tapes, for statistical and administrative purposes, and only minor modifications have been made to the manner in which these are produced.As applied to the population of the Canadian province of British Columbia (currently about 2 million people) these methods have already yielded substantial information on the risks of disease: a) in the population, b) in relation to various parental characteristics, and c) as correlated with previous occurrences in the family histories.
