Causes of Death in 19th-Century Ukraine. Parish Registers, Data Quality, and Source-Critical Analysis

This article examines parish registers as the primary source of mortality registration in 19th-century Ukraine and evaluates their potential and limitations for historical-demographic database construction. Drawing on Orthodox and Protestant parish registers from Left-bank and Southern Ukrainian territories of the Russian Empire, the study demonstrates that until the late 1830s these records rarely contained systematic information on causes of death and were characterized by substantial inconsistencies in age reporting, gender registration, and coverage of neonatal mortality. Based on an empirical analysis of more than 5,600 individual death records incorporated into the Ukrainian Mortality Database 19 (UMB19), the article identifies a clear institutional turning point around 1838, after which the recording of causes of death became more regular and increasingly standardized, though still dependent on the diligence and practices of individual clergy. Quantitative indicators such as age heaping and distorted sex ratios reveal persistent problems of underregistration, particularly of women and infants, while also allowing the identification of parish registers that meet minimum quality thresholds for inclusion in historical databases. The article further shows that 19th-century mortality statistics produced by ecclesiastical and civil authorities were entirely derivative of parish registers and therefore reproduced their structural biases. By outlining concrete criteria for source selection and data quality assessment, and by documenting the practical challenges of coding and standardizing historical causes of death, this study contributes to the methodological integration of Ukrainian materials into comparative European research on mortality and population history.