Women and Property 1885-1889 Female Wills: North Riding Register of Deeds

Research hypothesis was to use the Registers of Deeds for the North Riding of Yorkshire (held at North Yorkshire County Record Office, Northallerton, England) to advance knowledge about women's involvement with property transfer and the wider property market in the 18th & 19th centuries. Registers began in 1736 and ceased in 1970; there are 89 Index Ledgers and 2,328 Deeds Registers. The system for recording data changed in 1885 so one Index Ledger was selected from pre/ post this date and 100 years apart to incorporate impact of Marriage Acts.
Stage 1 - Two Index Ledgers were transcribed in full: 1) Index of Lands Vol 9 (1784-90) covers a seven-year period and contains 6,868 unique transactions (31,966 lines); and 2) Index of Lands 1885-1889 covers a five-year period and contains 14,481 unique transactions (52,741 lines). Each line represents a person's name. Core data from Index showed Township, unique reference and names of parties, but the 18th century Index Ledger did not show date of transaction or all parties. To analyse by gender this information was required so was added by using the Deeds Registers.
Information from the individual Deeds Registers was then used to add to the core datasets:
Stage 2 - The gender of all parties ('male', 'female' and 'not applicable' (for businesses)) was added.
Stage 3 - The usual residence, occupation (if any), marital status and any details of family relationships or inheritance rights of every women was added.
Stage 4 - The 18th century dataset was then reduced to a five-year period covering 1785-1789 ONLY to provide a direct comparison with the 19th century dataset. Comparative analysis by: gender, marital status and number of transactions.
Each transaction has a unique reference number but can contain multiple parties and cover more than one township. To identify the true number of transactions, the data had to be controlled for these factors.
A control for uniqueness was also required for those individuals and organisations involved in multiple transactions and to avoid assuming that everyone with the same name was actually the same person. Where women were involved, additional data e.g. marital status, residence or family relationships was used to differentiate between like women.

**Any transaction in the 1885-1889 dataset identified as being a FEMALE Will or Will & Codicil was manually extracted to a separate dataset - REPRESENTED HERE. These can be full copies, or memorials of the original as shortened by the Clerk at the Registry. In some cases, the Township is not given, but 'County of York & Elsewhere' given as place. This implies that the Executors knew that there was some land/ property but were unclear of exact location, or that there were multiple pieces of land across the County. Excel and .csv versions provided. Sorted by Unique Ref, but can be resorted by year, township, name or marital status as required.**

本研究的研究假设为：借助藏于英国北约克郡档案办公室（North Yorkshire County Record Office，北阿勒顿）的约克郡北区土地契约登记簿（Registers of Deeds），深化对18至19世纪女性参与财产转移及广义财产市场的认知。该登记簿体系始于1736年，终于1970年，共包含89本索引总账（Index Ledgers）与2328本契约登记簿（Deeds Registers）。1885年，数据记录规则发生变更，因此我们分别选取该日期前后且间隔100年的两本索引总账，以纳入《婚姻法》（Marriage Acts）的实施影响。

第一阶段，我们完成了两本索引总账的全量转录：其一为《土地索引 第9卷（1784-1790年）》，涵盖7年时间范围，包含6868笔独立交易（对应31966条记录）；其二为《土地索引 1885-1889年》，涵盖5年时间范围，包含14481笔独立交易（对应52741条记录）。每条记录对应一位当事人姓名。索引中的核心数据包含镇区、唯一参考编号及当事人姓名，但18世纪的索引总账未记录交易日期与全部当事人信息。若需按性别开展分析，则需补充上述缺失信息，因此我们通过查阅契约登记簿补充了相关内容。

随后，我们借助单本契约登记簿的信息对核心数据集进行扩充：
第二阶段：补充所有当事人的性别信息，分为“男性”“女性”及“不适用（针对企业）”三类。
第三阶段：补充每位女性当事人的常居地址、职业（若有）、婚姻状况，以及所有涉及的亲属关系或继承权相关细节。
第四阶段：将18世纪的数据集压缩至仅1785-1789年的5年时间范围，以实现与19世纪数据集的直接对比。随后按性别、婚姻状况及交易数量开展对比分析。

每笔交易均拥有唯一参考编号，但可对应多名当事人，且可覆盖多个镇区。为确定真实的交易总量，需针对上述因素对数据进行去重控制。此外，还需对参与多笔交易的个人与组织进行唯一性校验，避免将同名主体误判为同一人。针对涉及女性的交易，我们额外借助婚姻状况、常居地址或亲属关系等信息，区分同名女性当事人。

此外，我们将1885-1889年数据集中所有被识别为女性遗嘱或遗嘱及附加条款的交易，手动提取至单独的数据集——即本数据集所呈现的内容。该数据集可包含原始文件的完整副本，或经登记处书记员精简后的遗嘱备案摘要。部分记录未标注镇区，仅注明“约克郡及其他地区”，这意味着遗嘱执行人知晓存在土地/财产，但无法确定具体位置，或该财产分布于约克郡境内多个区域。本数据集提供Excel与.csv两种格式，默认按唯一参考编号排序，亦可根据需求按年份、镇区、姓名或婚姻状况重新排序。