Louis Henry

Who was Louis Henry?

Louis Henry was a French historian. Founder of the historical demography and one-place study fields. His 1956 book co-written with Michel Fleury, Des registres paroissiaux à l'histoire de la population. Manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancien lied foundation for studies in those areas.

Henry was proposing that it was possible to reconstruct the population of France from 1670 to 1829. He devised more advanced methods then extraction of data from records, together with rules to correct bias and indicate which family histories could be used for different kinds of statistical analysis.

Henry is also responsible for the concept of natural fertility, which became important for how demographers came to understand the idea of fertility control.