Women and Property 1785-1789 Female to Female Only Transactions: 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 1784-1790 dataset that contained women ONLY and which had 2+ women named was manually extracted to a separate dataset. This was then revised to strip out transactions for 1784 & 1790, leaving transactions dated 1785-1789 only - REPRESENTED HERE. Excel and .csv versions provided.** ***This dataset does NOT include sole female transactions (mainly Wills - see separate dataset).***

本研究的核心研究假设为，依托馆藏于英格兰北阿勒顿市北约克郡郡档案处（North Yorkshire County Record Office）的约克郡北区土地契约登记册（Registers of Deeds），深化学界对18至19世纪女性参与财产转移及广义房地产市场的研究认知。
该登记体系始于1736年，终止于1970年，共计包含89部索引台账（Index Ledgers）与2328部契约登记册（Deeds Registers）。1885年，数据记录体系发生变革，因此研究选取了该时间节点前后各间隔100年的两部索引台账，以纳入《婚姻法》（Marriage Acts）的影响范畴。
第一阶段——完整转录两部索引台账：其一为《土地索引第9卷（1784-1790年）》，涵盖7年交易周期，包含6868笔独立交易，对应31966条记录行；其二为《1885-1889年土地索引》，涵盖5年交易周期，包含14481笔独立交易，对应52741条记录行。每条记录行对应一名当事人姓名。
索引台账的核心数据包含乡镇名称、唯一参考编号及当事人姓名，但18世纪的索引台账未标注交易日期及全部当事人信息。若需按性别维度开展分析，则需补充此类信息，因此研究借助契约登记册完成了信息补全。
随后，利用单部契约登记册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”与“不适用（针对企业主体）”三类；
第三阶段——补充每位女性当事人的惯常居所、职业（若有）、婚姻状况，以及其家庭关系或继承权相关细节；
第四阶段——将18世纪数据集精简至仅涵盖1785-1789年的五年周期，以实现与19世纪数据集的直接对标分析。
本研究按性别、婚姻状况及交易数量开展比较分析。每笔交易拥有唯一参考编号，但可包含多名当事人且涉及多个乡镇。为明确真实交易笔数，需针对上述因素对数据进行去重控制。同时，针对参与多笔交易的个人及组织，亦需进行唯一性校验，以避免将同名主体误判为同一对象。针对涉及女性当事人的交易，研究额外借助婚姻状况、居所或家庭关系等信息，对同名女性进行区分。
**本研究将1784-1790年数据集中仅包含女性当事人且涉及2名及以上女性的交易，手动提取至独立数据集。随后对该数据集进行修订，剔除1784年与1790年的交易，仅保留1785-1789年的交易——即当前公开的数据集版本。本数据集提供Excel与.csv两种格式文件。**
***本数据集未包含仅由女性单独参与的交易（此类交易多为遗嘱（Wills）相关，详见独立数据集）。***