Romanian-Norwegian partnership for the first historical population database of Transylvania

The Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, central Romania and the Norwegian Historical Data Centre at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) are drafting the first historical population database of Transylvania, which can provide insight on the history of diseases, occupation, as well as migration and mobilization in the region.

The project is conducted by EEA Grants and Norway Grants programme.

The joint team of researchers has to document on the births, marriages, and deaths in this region, aiming to identify individual appearances in each register and connect those together. By doing so they can draw a closer picture of the life of the past, starting from a person’s birth and ending at their death.

“We’re helping current and future research on population by finding the roots of these issues,” explains Dr. Luminita Dumanescu from the Babes-Bolyai University, who revealed that PhD and Master’s students volunteer their time to the project and use the database for their own research.

The team at Babes-Bolyai works together with the Norwegian Historical Datacentre at the University of Tromsø.

“Our Norwegian colleagues provide us with technical support. When it came to the technological side of building the database, we started from zero. The Norwegians however have had their own database since the 1970s, so they have a lot of experience in this aspect. They were able to help us a lot with the coding process.”

Despite the geographical distance, the two universities maintain a very close relationship. The team holds skype meetings every week and is organising panels in two conferences, one in Valencia where the team will discuss research on mortality, and the other in Leuven where marriages will be in the spotlight.

Dr Dumanescu and her colleagues focused on making the database an example of good practice, as well as sharing the knowledge and experience gained from the project. The team has already published one article in an international scientific journal in 2015, with five more ongoing to be released in national and international journals during 2016. In addition to organizing joint panels at international conferences in Spain and Belgium, the team has also organized two summer school workshops under the umbrella of the European Sample of Population Network.

“We aim to make this a good practice example. We have already had researchers from Croatia and Russia come here to learn how to build their own databases,” Dumanescu also informed.