26. Historical Family Reconstitution Databases in the Study of Kinship Influences on Demographic Outcomes

Abstract

Human life histories and demographic outcomes are impacted by kin behaviour in diverse ways, and human evolutionary theory is essential to understanding how environmental context and kin relationship moderate this behaviour in cooperative versus competitive directions. However, kin presence is simultaneously correlated with behavioural and non-behavioural factors such as risk of infection or familial wealth. As such, it can be hard to disentangle evolutionary effects from other factors correlated within a family. In this chapter we discuss how historical family reconstitution databases have assisted in the investigation of kin effects and their advantages in disentangling these behavioural kin effects from non-behavioural accompanying factors. A variety of family reconstitution studies exist across varying geographic and cultural contexts, and their application to kinship research has resulted in varying findings. This highlights how kin impacts differ depending on circumstance. We describe several family reconstitution studies and discuss the importance of evolutionary theory in understanding kin effects across different populations.