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New Technologies Applied to Family History: A Particular Case of Southern Europe in the Eighteenth Century
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Journal of Family History 000(00) 1-15 2011 The Author(s) Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0363199011406996 http://jfh.sagepub.com

Manuel Perez Garcia1

Abstract In this article, the authors explain how the support of new technologies has helped historians to develop their research over the last few decades. The authors, therefore, summarize the application of both database and genealogical programs for the southern Europe family studies as a methodological tool. First, the authors will establish the importance of the creation of databases using the File Maker program, after which they will explain the value of using genealogical programs such as Genopro and Heredis. The main aim of this article is to give detail about the use of these new technologies as applied to a particular study of southern Europe, specifically the Crown of Castile, during the Late Modern period. The use of these computer programs has helped to develop the field of Social Sciences and Family History, in particular Social History, during the last decade. Keywords family, social network, new technologies, life-cycle, nuclear family, extended family

Introduction
The application of the new technologies to the Social Sciences has been developed with extreme vigor during recent decades, especially in the nineties. The link established between the humanist and the computer has helped the former to analyze more clearly the problems and the questions posed around a specific topic. Thus, the computer and the coded software must be defined as the basic tools which facilitate the researcher to resolve his difficulties and queries. Some historians such as Roger Middleton and Peter Wardley1 have claimed that the way of using and applying different programs has not changed significantly inasmuch as they tend to produce the same outcome as regards compiling information and data. However, in recent years the improvement and the fast diffusion of new software and the increase of the internal capacity of the personal computer (PC) have created a problem for the social historian and researcherthe paradox of the PC as a means or as a goalthe fascination of the machine.2 So far, the chief challenge has been whether to treat the help that the new technology offers as the
1

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Murcia, Spain

Corresponding Author: Manuel Perez Garcia, Pilar, 9, 4b, 30004, Murcia, Spain Email: manuel.perez@eui.eu

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key goal in itself rather than taking it as a tool or a means to shed light on the topic that the historian needs to clarify. How to deal with a huge bunch of records and to manage them properly has been the main dilemma among historians, consequently whether or not the representativeness of the sample is good enough to resolve the working hypothesis is the chief focus of historical researches. The contribution of this article is basically to offer a perspective of the role of the social historian regarding the studies which have influenced their analysis in applying computer programs to the social sciences. In other words, the main innovation of this study is to emphasize the importance and efficacy of using software and databases to conduct accurately historical researches, especially when we are dealing with interdisciplinary issues such as the analysis of the history of family which touches different fields, for instance, demography, economics, anthropology or social history. Thus, the researcher needs a proper means to collect data when he applies his study to the fields mentioned above. Otherwise, the final conclusions can be vague and partial. Therefore, there are two ways that can help historians to manage the interpretation of enormous quantity of data. First, the interconnection among departments or research groups of different universities can facilitate the communication of results of certain studies. In other words, the interdisciplinary needs to be brought more to the fore as well as the application of new technologies being the aim to contextualize all factors which can make an influence in family studies. Secondly, when the researcher conducts his study on his own, clearly it is more important the use of software and databases to manage the data in order to interpret them properly. A vast group of data cannot be dealt by single researcher without clustering them properly; the design of databases is the key tool in order to collect such data and consequently make suitable queries to answer the working hypothesis. By contrasting the aims in using this technology and the way in which these aims may be achieved, we can identify the main deficiencies and how to resolve them. The goal is to put forward an example of the problem of showing an empirical perspective by applying certain software such as genealogical programs (Heredis and Genopro) and databases (File Maker or Access) in order to compile records and conduct the research which help to exploit and benefit from the information obtained. The way in which a personal database is constructed and the method, with which the final report is created, are the key points for leading the research. The history of family is the main subject that deals with the so-called interdisciplinary in social sciences touching relevant issues such as individual life course, social trajectories, the measurement of the size of the household or the approach of the network analysis. In this way, Jan Kok3 has claimed that to deal with life course studies such as the demographic behavior of social groups during the transition to a new demographic regime it is important to use proper computer tools such as statistics or regression models and analytical categories used by econometric and cliometric historians. Therefore, in this article, we give details about the use of these new technologies as applied to a particular family study of southern Europe. The study case which we present is for the instance of the Crown of Castile, during the Late Modern period. The analysis of the role of certain individuals within the strategies of the family group, social trajectories, parenthood, residence and neighborhood, are the main issues related with the life sequence of social actors that we analyze within the software package mentioned above. This methodological tool has permitted me the analysis of demographic behavior and strategies of social actors who were building up of a social network in order to achieve a social promotion.

Computer and Databases in the Social Sciences: Approaches in Historiography and the Application of Databases to Case Studies
From the first moment when historians started to apply new technologies to their researches until the present day nothing has changed about the debate generated as a consequence of this application.

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If we take into account the application of databases, software or the Internet on a wide scalethe World Wide Web (WWW) in particularcertainly important improvements have taken place. For instance, the use of electronic networks for improved access to bibliographical records, the employment of digital images of historical material such as the creation of electronic archives: the History Data Service (HDS) located in the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex,4 the catalogues of the British Library or the National Archives whose records, manuscripts, microfilms, treatises or documents are well registered in the digital index. Researchers have access to the above indexes by Internetlinking to the Web site in which these documents are located. Thus, the electronic resources such as indexes have been well received by the group of traditional historians, who use the new technology for searching and locating documents and records in electronic catalogues. However, they are reluctant to use electronic programs and databases as a method of compilation of sources and analysis of data when producing their reports. The major reason is because the traditional historians have paid more attention to the individual trajectories of the social actors or the characteristics of certain events rather than taking into account all the variables and factors that exert a strong influence around the phenomenon which is being analyzed. These historians are extremely keen that their assessments and theories should be acceptable to all different groups of historians, currently and in the future. Before the arrival of new technologies and computer programs this group of historians developed methods to compile data from sources using traditional index cards. Within this group, diverse fields of history such as politics, religion, social and economic history or the history of law can be identified. The process of compiling data and building up samples through statistical charts has been neglected by the traditional scholars. Analytical databases have likewise been ignored by the same researchers. However, the traditional historiographical tendency admits that the historical processes and their features and factors are different according to the area or territory being dealt with. Thus, these scholars fall into a trap. They would like to understand the whole historical process taking into account the different characteristics; however, they neglect the statistical procedure for compiling data which is more precise in order to produce satisfying results. The practice of constructing databases from a range of sources is defined itself as a method of studying differences among territories and making comparative analyses between diverse regions and areas with a global perspective.5 Historians can carry on this practice and method through the application of computer programs and databases which let them estimate data within the samples, analyze correlations and regressions with reference to the size of the total information. In this way, the approach of historical researches can be made on different scales and we can observe the complexity of the whole historical process. March Bloch was the historian pioneer in analyzing the historical process throughout the comparative method making a comparison between the English and French society during the Middle Ages.6 Within this method, he studies medieval societies to understand the transformation in both geographic areas regarding the property of the land and the socio-economic and cultural transfers in both English and French societies. The goal was to compare two societies in order to investigate their similarities and differences. That is why Bloch was the first historian in dealing with general events and broad questions which entangled different issues appearing important concepts in this method such as asymmetry and symmetry. In this way, it appeared the confrontation between macro and micro-history, in other words, the micro-level approach broke down with the concept of total history, which could be not understandable if we do not pose proper questions to the sources taking into account diverse factors. How the historian should read the documents and how should we make queries and store the information? In the history of family, how the researcher should cluster important information such as baptism, marriage, or burial recordssociodemographic informationand put these sources in contact with

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other ones such as wills, sworn declarations, and censuseseconomic informationin order to investigate the individual trajectories and how those trajectories are framed in a wider group strategysocial network approach? Bloch launched a brand new studies dealing with big events, which could not be understood without taking into account that most of them are entangled. The goal of the method, which historian uses to answer his questions, must be a disentanglement of the sources. Obviously, the application of new technologies to social sciences has helped to resolve the problem of feasibility of dealing with a vast pile of different records. Since the first application of technology to historical studies, an important group of scholars have been more aware of the usefulness of such application. But the historian should not forget that this method is a tool of research which has been defined by Peter Laslett7 as an instrument of intellectual exploration. Nowadays, the debate generated in Social History about the application of computer programs has not changed, but obviously the procedure of inserting data and statistical elements into the historical analyses has been facilitated by the increase of capacity and memory of the new hardware and software. The pioneer works in this field are the researches of the Baltimore School led by Robert Fogel and Engerman8 and the Cambridge Group headed by Peter Laslett9,10 studying the history of population and social structure using a statistical method which started the following researches linked with family and the size of household. In the case of Peter Laslett and the Cambridge Group, the main concern of their studies has been the demographic evolution of the European society during the transition of the Ancien Regime to the Modern Era within the framework of the Industrial Revolution. To analyze the transition to more stable economic regimes in Europe, Lasletts group has investigated important features of the history of family such as the birth and mortality cohorts, the age to access to marriage, the description of migration and the fertility and household structure. To understand and deal with such relevant and entangled issues, the creation of databases is the chief tool to cluster and analyze properly those data. That is why the Cambridge group was one of the first in European studies in applying new technologies to the study of the family in Europe.11 Robert Fogel made a similar application of technologies, being one of the first historians in dealing with cliometric studies in American history. He studied the influence of building up railroads in American industrialization and their influence in the economic development of different cities by transporting wheat and helping in migration movements. In later studies, socio-economic historians started to create databases for developing their new research projects. In this respect, nothing has changed in the procedure of creating new databases. As we have already said the database is made for answering the questions that historians need to answer in their research and for building up their working hypotheses. This idea can be corroborated if we come across papers and articles by social historians such as Peter Laslett and Wall,9 Hans Christian Johansen,12 or Holle Humphries.13 The latter establishes an important assessment in her recent work, to guide computers in exploring ontological concepts and questions asked about the nature of art and computer art . . . Students need to understand the nature of their art tool and medium of choice. Peter Laslett identifies the importance of this tool as a means to conduct socio-economic studies effectively. However, the main fear of historians has been the difficulty of building up a database with enough capacity to compile a huge quantity of records with which they can make statistical reports and arrive more clearly at conclusions. Further applications of databases can be found in the case study of the city of Odense in Denmark in the eighteenth century by Hans Christian Johansen.12 This work is really worthwhile because it illustrates the way in which a database for socio-economic approaches has to take into account the difficulties that certain sources embed. Basically these difficulties are the omission of information within the source itself, which make it more difficult to produce estimates and results in reports and enquiries established with the database. In fact such a problem was frequent in the first generation of historians, who, using only the parish records, dealt with the analyses of families. They did not take

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into account the migratory issue in their researches. Thus, the group of families that they analyzed could not be representative of the whole population, because it is extremely difficult to follow the migratory population employing only a single source. However, this gap can be filled by crossing and combining different sources. For instance, as Hans Christian Johansen links parish records with the nominative list of the census of 1787 for the Danish case study. His work is based on a method in which the household is the central unit, rather than the family itself themselves, when different ranges of data are used. In this respect, the demographic information was combined by this author with socio-economic registers of the social actors, such as catalogues of landlords with the information about the size and extent of their landholding. Furthermore, in the mid-eighties, he decided to expand this kind of study when researching urban areas. These records compiled on a nominal level to further his research, whether demographic, social, cultural or economic, made it possible for him to create a useful wider database. The resulting database was constructed for the Danish community of Odense in the eighteenth century.14 At first when Johansen designed his database he asked himself about the feasibility of exploiting the inputs of his database: Would it prove possible to handle the large number of records needing computerisation?.12 Johansen opened a new path in socio-economic studies integrating different variables with the computerization model, which has been followed and improved by an important group of scholars during late eighties, nineties and early twenty-first century. In this group, we can include the Princeton European Fertility Project15 which deals with adaptation of new demographic models in economic-changing times16. New projects, such as the ones conducted by Brown and Guinnanne,17 appear regarding the analysis of fertility rates and the increase of population. All this projects refresh research topics reincorporating new issues in their analysis and renewing their computer packages taking into account problems that sources pose on the interpretation of data. This is the key point and also it is not unlike Pandoras box, because there is no homogeneous rule or limitation for creating a database. Each individual database should be created taking into account the factors and the specific problems which arise from the sources that are being dealt with. The problem can be solved first by being aware of the difficulties inherent in the sources and second by bearing in mind the limits of the database. This is how Johansen confronted the challenge identified by Peter Laslett one decade earlier, a dilemma which other historians still face. A good strategy for socioeconomic historians is to use specific fields and categories in the design of a database, which include all the possible factors of the particular sources. In this respect, the outcome of this computer tool can be applied on both macro and micro scales, which can offers a good perspective when historians are dealing with socio-economic and demographic factors as future researchers may be involved in case studies on either a local or a general level. Thus, historians can compare the socioeconomic and demographic behavior of social groups, taking into account the life-cycle of individuals, 18,19 migratory patterns which can be analyzed to establish cohorts of population, and also we can get a picture of the urban distribution among the different social ranks. Such a comparative analysis has been made by Steve King.20 This author has studied the size and type of the different households by reconstructing the life-cycle of the social actors. The size of the families can be measured by using the nominative method. For this purpose Steve King has built up a database which includes in its different fields a group of categories derived from baptism, marriage, and burial records. Thus, in the database there are links which show the relationship between the diverse fields with the target of building up the life-cycle, measuring the size of the household, classifying the kind of sources and making a graphic reconstruction. Historians can thus deal with an important quantity of records and information with the help of computer databases and this tool can also be used to shed light on the socioeconomic patterns of European communities for the Early Modern period. This tool has a lot of applications depending on the target case-study and analysis.

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However, the main critics, by traditional scholars in applying statistics and databases, have been that the application of regression methods, the study of correlation of different variables such as the influence of ageing to work with the marital status, is a very rigid and descriptive tool that cannot explain the concrete case of social actors involved in a more complicate strategy of the family group. Our view of those debates, which still remain in both traditional and modern historiography, is that both traditions are not fostering a co-integration of different disciplines. Demographers are quite eager in keep the study of population in their hands without opening avenues to integrate sociocultural events which might help to contextualize better issues that explain the development of cities and rural areas. Anthropologists do not integrate in their research proper historical concepts such as the different denomination of political institutions, which are basic to understand the historical process and exert an influence in the social hierarchy. Economists eagerly deal with abstract and descriptive quantitative models without frame facts and the so-called economic crisis with sociocultural forces that impulse a particular society to acquire certain attitudes and behavior in a concrete phase in the coordinate space-time. In other words, the interdisciplinary among fields will continue an utopia whether departments of different universities does not start to integrate different fields in their curricula. Consequently, researchers will continue in their particular island without understanding accurately the whole historical process whether or not the approach to apply was micro or macro level. To foster the so-called interdisciplinary among historians and to enhance the study of family history, one of the main collaborations that must occur is between European, Latin American and North American Scholars. This is the main cause which explains why this debate has not been resolved so far.

Using and Applying a Database and Genealogical Programs to Analyze Southern European Families: The Case Study of Castile
In the following lines we explain the way in which we have used a database with the File Maker program and the genealogical programs such as Genopro and Heredis with the aim of developing my research. First of all, we have to point out that our research belongs to socio-economic studies that deal with the behavior of the different social ranks and families of the Ancien Regime in Castile in the eighteenth century. The study includes the analysis of a specific group of families belonging to the aristocracy of south-eastern Castile, in particular those residents in the Kingdom of Murcia.21 The main scientific interest of this project is that it aims to provide an empirical explanation of the many issues underlying the historiographical paradigm of the crisis of society during the Ancien Regime in its transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The study of the nobility in their transition from the Ancien Regime to the new bourgeois era is paramount in an understanding of the social, economic, and cultural transformation and preservation processes that take place in this period. In this context, the study of families proves essential. Indeed, defining the type, size and composition of noble families, their strategies and histories and their friendship patterns, their vicinity, fictitious kinships and clientelism relations allow us to gain an insight into the behavior and social patterns of the group which belongs to the social elites. We explore P. Lasletts traditional view of kinship from a domestic and co-residence9 group moving to a more dynamic concept that includes blood ties, alliance and reciprocity systems involving common strategies for the transmission of property, especially according to the Castilian system of inheritance (the entailed estate) which benefits the eldest son of the family, during the time of change from Ancien Regime to bourgeois society. This main aim of the investigation can be broken down into two more specific objectives: 1. Identification of the social actors that actually make up the group of nobility. The heterogeneous nature of groupsa characteristic deriving from the Ancien R gimes strong hierarchization e

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makes it difficult to fit the different social actors within the Ancien Regimes social pyramid. However, we have been able to do it by using Heredis software which has enabled me to build up the social network of outstanding figures of Castilian oligarchy (see Table 1). We can observe both Antonio Riquelmes family and non-family relationships with important members of the sociopolitical power enabling him to keep the supremacy of his family in the public sphere. 2. The familial and social relations of nobility. My study analyses the familial strategies of the nobility. By examining the groups relations with family, friends, other people from the same area and the vertical relationships occurring between them and their clients and the vertical, patronage and clientelist relations (through duty or dependence) we can find out whether or not social mobility occurred and its upward or downward nature. This second objective can be achieved through the following: 1. The study of the demographical behavior of the nobility. Based on the concept of the lifecycle, I intend to define the kind of family unit making up the body of noblemen of the city of Murcia. Using both life-cycle and family unit concepts, we aim to demonstrate how individual and personal social trajectories are integrated into family strategies, which goal, in the south-eastern Castile society, is to enlarge the family size to keep all family members in outstanding socio-political positions. This issue explains why the size of Mediterranean families is difficult to measure because of the entanglement of their both nuclear and enlarge nature.22,23 2. In connection with the above goal, it is also essential to consider the matrimonial practices (analysis of marriage strategies) and hereditary practices (who succeeded to the property of the entailed estate) within families and thus determine their systems of social reproduction. 3. The study of the various modes of ownership and property management by reconstructing the economic wealth of noble families throughout the period. We have chosen the nominative methodology, studying the category of individual names linked with the main social actor, to conduct my research due to the complexity inherent to the studies of long dur e, whose goal is to analyze the process of social change throughout the evolution of e social trajectories of family groups. The aim of this methodology is to reveal the true figures of the main events and how the so-called events exerted an influence in the social position of a concrete family group. We have built up the social relations of individuals, with and without family links, by means of the social network analysis, which explains the improvements and failures, in economic and political terms, of social groups during the Ancien Regime. Thus, we proceed to the build up of family social network through the nominative cross-sources such as parish, marriage, and burial records; protocolswills, dowries, and letters to set the entailed-estate; or letters to show the purity of bloodhidalgo exams. The purpose is to establish the density of links and bonds of social actors belonging to the elite families that we are dealing with. Those social networks allow us to analyze the nature of the different socio-economic and political processes which are permitted to particular families to achieve their socio-economic status or redefine their political strategies to keep the urban power. The genealogical method allows us to measure the family size and how the household redefine is demographic behavior generation after generation being the main purpose the perpetuation in the socio-political sphere. The computer package, that we use to analyze the social trajectory of those families, has allowed me to overcome problems identified by the recent historiography regarding the study of particular events linked with the main actors that we are dealing with. Such problems, regarding with the heterogeneity in any population, have been very well-identified by Jan Kok.3 The building up of the social network, belonging to any personage or the predominant figure of the family group, can be done with the database and software that we have used to analyze the

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Table 1. Antonio Riquelme y Fontes social network Charges RIQUELME Y FONTES, Antonio Manager of the Brotherhood of Santiago Landlord of GuadalupeChief Manager of the Brotherhood Ntro. Padre Jes s Nazareno (B.N.P.J.N.) u Fathers RIQUELME Y FONTES, Jesualdo Manager of the Brotherhood of SantiagoManager of the B.N.P. J.N. Landlord of Guadalupe FONTES Y RIQUELME, Maria de la Concepcion Personal events Participation in the administration of the Brotherhood of Santiago de la Espada (B.S.E.) 18.6.1794Murcia Witness: DE AVELLANEDA Y FONTES, Nicol sWitness: DE PAZ Y VALCARCEL, Joaquin (regidor of a Murcia)Witness: MONINO, Jos (Count of Floridablanca) Witness: LUCAS CELDRAN, Antonio e (Marquis of Campillo) Witness: FERNANDEZ de LA REGUERA Y SANCHO, Juan Jos Witness: e FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun (Holy Brotherhood of la Maestranza de Granada, Member of Inquisition, Alguacil Mayor of the Inquisition)- Witness: SANDOVAL Y ORTEGA, Francisco AntonioWitness: MOLINA Y BORJA, Diego (Viscount of Huertas) Witness: SANDOVAL Y TOGORES, Francisco de Paula Marriage Family 1 ARCE Y FLORES, JosefaBirth date: 1791Chinchilla Marriage place: Chinchilla Sons and daughters with ARCE Y FLORES, Josefa RIQUELME Y ARCE, Josefa RIQUELME Y ARCE, Jos Jesualdo e RIQUELME Y ARCE, Mara Teresa get married with DE BUSTOS Y CASTILLA, Rafael RIQUELME Y ARCE, Antonio Participation of Antonio Riquelme in his relatives events He has been witness of: FONTES Y ABAT, Estanislao: B.S.E.: 20.6.1805Murcia (Witness) FONTES FERNANDEZ de LA REGUERA, Joaquin Mara: B.S.E.: 20.6.1805Murcia (Witness) FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun: B.S.E.: 20.6.1805Murcia (Witness) FONTES Y ABAT, Antonio: B.S.E.: 19.6.1807Murcia (Witness) FONTES FERNANDEZ de LA REGUERA, Joaquin Mara: B.S.E.: 19.6.1807Murcia (Witness) FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun: B.S.E.: 19.6.1807Murcia (Witness) FONTES Y ABAT, Antonio: B.N.P.J.N.: 19.6.1807Murcia (Witness) FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun: B.N.P.J.N.: 28.5.1809Murcia (Witness) FONTES Y ABAT, Antonio: B.S.E.: 21.6.1811Murcia (Witness) RIQUELME Y ARCE, Antonio: B.S.E.:20.3.1840Murcia (Witness) FONTES Y QUEIPO de LLANO, Mariano: B.N.P.J.N.:18.2.1842Murcia (Witness) FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun: B.N.P.J.N.: 8.3.1805Murcia (Witness) RIQUELME SALAFRANCA Y FONTES, Jos : B.N.P.J.N.: 15.3.1812Murcia (Witness) e FONTES RIQUELME, Joaqun: B.N.P.J.N.: 26.2.1814Murcia (Witness) RIQUELME SALAFRANCA Y FONTES, Jos : B.N.P.J.N.: 17.2.1815Murcia (Witness) e RIQUELME SALAFRANCA Y FONTES, Jos : B.N.P.J.N.: 16.2.1816Murcia (Witness) e
Note. Archivo Historico Provincial de Murcia, Cofrada Santiago de la Espada (17711816), Leg. 3728, Cabildos y Cuentas (1803). Archivo Cofrada Nuestro Padre Jes s Nazareno, Actas y Cabildos (24-8-1775/21-5-1786). u

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individual trajectories and life-course family of those individuals. The identification of personal events such as the participation in the political life of the city, the belonging of high-class groupsMilitary Orders or preeminent religious brotherhoodscrossed with parish records and protocols, it can be an important method to overcome the problems regarding the heterogeneity of the whole of observations of any personages and any family groups of the population that we are analyzing. During the Ancien Regime society, the role of kinship and family, in social networks, is defined by means of consanguinity linking a particular individual with two or more having as a consequence an enrichment of the social relations of the family group. Thus, the analysis of interpersonal links, generated by kinship relations, is the chief aim of any research that deals with social issues. The focus on those issues has permitted us to understand whether or not the so-called family ties let preeminent social groups to reach reproduction, assimilation and perpetuation processes in the sociopolitical life keeping public charges and positions by passing them generation after generation. In our analysis of the southern European oligarchy, we can shed light on the topic of the social processes, in particular the case of the Castilian groups, with the micro-level approach with which we analyze the social behavior of powerful families. The focus on the micro-level of Ancien Regime society is really important in order to understand socio-economic changes and continuities in social groups in the transition to a new demographic and economic stage. Such approach is really important when the historian wants to draw conclusion on the individual life-course and social trajectories; this is the reason why in southern European societies, during the Ancien Regime, is relevant to investigate the spacespublic or private institutionsin where social actors were involved. Such sociability places are the household unit, the City Hall, the Ecclesiastic Council, the Inquisition, Military Orders, the Court, Brotherhoods, the Army, Colleges, and so on. This is the key analytical issue which allows the historian to deal with two realities: the individual trajectory and the family strategies, which integrate family members in a better status improving their position in the public life. The conjunction between individual and family life is the major feature of the behavior of Ancien Regime groups, which wanted to achieve an upwards social mobility. The way in which their networks and socio-political connections are traced is the path to those improvements in the status. In our approach, data are cross-matched from sources such as churchesbaptism, marriage, and death recordsnotarial officesdowries, wills, probate inventoriesand records of the Council of Murcia, and Military Orders, among others; and the legal records filed at Granadas Real Chancillera [Royal Chancery] or the Consejo de Castilla [Castilian Council]. In this manner, we can identify the major family groups and rebuild their social and economic roles. We believe the use of network analysis methods is of help in building up a typology of social relationships within these families and determining the degree of density, the most prominent individuals and the consequences deriving from these relations. The use of new information technologies has been very useful in this project, applying such tools as Ucinet, Genopro, and Heredis to reconstruct the social trajectories of noble groups, together with the use of a new multi-relational database that facilitates collecting almost all social relations explicitly or implicitly appearing in the documents searched. The database is built up with the File Maker program (see Chart No. 3) and each of its fields is created with the objective of compiling the notarial and parish records with which we can analyze the management of the property and the life-cycle of social actors of the aristocracy. The main fields and categories of our relational database are the following:  RECORD: in this field the individual is registered.  IDENTIFY: the individual is identified automatically by the computer giving him a code number.  REFERENCE: in this field the reference of the source is recorded such as the name of the archive, number of pages of the document and the name of the scribe.

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 ACT: the event and its characteristics are registered in this field in which we stress the role of the social actors. Thus, in this field there is a category that defines the relationships between the social actors and in consequence the life-cycle can be reconstructed.  SYMBOL: all the cultural issues are registered in this field such as the membership of sociocultural institutions (Brotherhoods or Military Orders).  PROPERTY: this field is one of the most relevant of the database because it permits one to register all the records in connection with the management of the properties and it gives a view of each item of the immovable assets.  ANALYSIS: this field offers an overview of each field and category of the database thus making it possible to analyze more clearly the social trajectories of the individuals and to make enquiries in the database to exploit the entire body of information. It offers a summarization of all events belonging to each social actor. This field makes possible to follow the individual trajectories and consequently the social strategies of family groups. In this study, we have combined the usefulness of this database with other programs such as the genealogical programs (Heredis and Genopro) and Ucinet which allow us to reconstruct the social networks of the individuals. Both Genopro (see Chart No. 2) and Ucinet (see Chart No. 1) have a special feature which draws a graphic representation of the families and the social actors. With Genopro, we can obtain a complete overview of the different generations of the family through the drawing of genealogical trees. Furthermore, Ucinet illustrates the representation of the social networks which focus only on the social actors (egocentric network) or on all the individuals (sociometric network). Heredis allows us to build up the genealogical trees of the individuals and identify the named persons who are linked with the individual social networks. The advantage of combining these separate programs allows us to overcome the problems inherent in the sources and in the limits of each software program because each of them is designed for a specific purpose. The relational database is designed to record the more economic aspects and the other software to record the more social information. In this way, the analysis which combines both social and economic perspectives can be developed with further details of the different issues combining the micro and macro scales.

Conclusions
The novelty of this computer package is the possibility of storing records properly and making pertinent queries to all information that we have. It is an outstanding tool which has allowed me to compile almost all social relationships among the social groups that we deal with. The most important help has been given by using Heredis. This software has compiled the whole information respecting a double logic: on the one hand, the internal logic of the documentCity Hall decrees, Brotherhood rules, hidalgo exams, wills, dowries, letters of entailed-estate foundation and parish records; on the other hand, there are designed a group of entries which allow us to establish ties and bonds among the different social actors through parameters which identified the belonging to local elites. This kind of software composed one of the most modern technologies that very few historians have applied to the analysis of family groups in southern Europe. Thus, it has been really important to cross the results of Heredis, which permit to sketch social networks, with Genopro, which let us to observe the demographic evolution of those families, generation after generation, measure the size of the household and marriage strategies with the goal of keeping the social power and improve the status. Therefore, we are able to deal with both individual life-course and family strategies by building up the social network of the families of the oligarchy of Castile. Both issues, as we have outlined above, are the most relevant to analyze when historian wants to analyze the demographic and socioeconomic behavior of a given society during Ancien Regime Age. Moreover, those analytical

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categories have permitted me to observe deeply the complexity of the family model of Mediterranean families as we can check in charts below (see Appendix) in which the social actor patterns follow a trend according to family strategies. Those trends explain why oligarchic family size is enlarging in some generations and in others is narrower according with the so-called family policies. The use of computer programs has given us the chance to measure accurately the family size and build up of the family social network. That technology has been a potential mean to answer our research questions and approach properly to the sources. Unfortunately there are few Spanish works referring to the application of new technologies such as databases to develop the analyses of the Ancien Regime. The most important work is the Congress carried out in Castilla-La Mancha in 2000.24 However, as we have mentioned in previous pages, in the last decade the European socio-economic historiography has taken into account the facilities that the application of new technologies can offer for analyzing Early Modern Europe. Historians usually fall into the trap of looking for the magical computer program that makes their research easier. In fact, this is the trap of the telecommunication era which has a potentially dangerous effect on social scientists. We have to bear in mind the splendid utility of the new technologies as a tool, but the historian should never forget that databases and software are designed as a means of answering the questions that have been posed rather than an end in themselves.

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Appendix
Sociometric Representation of social network of the Riquelme Lineage (eighteenth century)

Figure 1. Sociometric representation of social network of the Riquelme lineage (eighteenth century)
*Representation: blue circle (racionero, clerical post), yellow circle (arcediano, clerical post), green circle (Inquisition), pink circle (hall residence member), blue navy circle (canon post), red triangle (low clergy member), red circle (linage Riqueme memberships or individuals belong to his kinship or social network).

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Genealogical tree of the Riquelme Lineage (eighteenth century)

JUAN DE LA PERALEJA

MARTIN DE LA PERALEJA

HERNAN SANCHEZ DE LA PERALEJA

GERONIMA TOMAS

RAMON DE PALAZOL

NICOLASA GALTERO

FERNANDO ANTONIO DE LA MOLINA PERALEJA CARRILLO

LUISA DE BEATRIZ ANTONIO CATALINA JUAN LA DE LA DE LA DE LA DAMIAN DE PERALEJA PERALEJA PERALEJA PERALEJA LA PERALEJA

LUISA TOMAS

MARIA DE LA PERALEJA

DIEGO MARTINEZ GALTERO MELGAREJO

BALTASAR FONTES Y AVILES

ISABEL DIEGO FRANCISCA MELGAREJO CARRILLO MARIN DE MORA

DIONISIA GALTERO DE LA PERALEJA

MACIAS FONTES CARRILLO I Marqus de Torre Pacheco

CATALINA FONTES CARRILLO

FRANCISCO MELGAREJO Y GALTERO Conde del Valle de S. Juan

ANA CEFERINA MELGAREJO GALTERO

PEDRO PUXMARN Y FAJARDO Seor de Montealegre

JUANA VILLANUEVA Y CARCELEN

BALTASAR FONTES MELGAREJO II Marqus de Torre Pacheco

NICOLASA MARIA DE PAZ Y CASTILLA

DIEGO MELGAREJO

JUANA PUXMARIN Y VILLANUEVA

ANTONIO FONTES PAZ III Marqus de Torre Pacheco

FRANCISCA RIQUELME Y BUENDA

FERNANDO MELGAREJO Y PUXMARIN

JOAQUIN FONTES RIQUELME III Marqus de Torre Pacheco

Figure 2. Genealogical tree of the Riquelme lineage (eighteenth-century).

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Author Note This article makes up part of the work developed by the research group, Seminario de Familia y elite de poder en el Reino de Murcia, ss. XV-XIX, of the University of Murcia (Spain) in the National Project HAR2010-21325-C-05-01, whose main researcher is professor Francisco Chacon Jimenez, funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion of the Spanish Government. Grant holder of the European University Institute of Florence. Grant into the Program IV.B of the A.E.C.I. (Agencia Espanola de Cooperaci n Internacional) belonged to M.A.E.C. (Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores o y de Cooperaci n). o Acknowledgements The author is very grateful to Jan Kok (Senior Researcher of the International Institute of Social History) who gave him the very pertinent comments and remarks to improve the previous version of this article during and after the conference of the Social Science History held last October, 2008, in Miami. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the research, authorship and/ or publication of this article. Financial Disclosure/Funding
AQ 3

The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. Notes
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Bio
Manuel Perez Garcia is a researcher of the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, where he has obtained his PhD on trans-national and comparative history applied to studies on consumer behavior. He was visiting scholar in the University of California at Berkeley working in both Economic and History Departments. His topic reaches the socio-economic and family history, the Enlightenment movement and the application of new technologiessoftware and databasesto Social Sciences. By covering these issues he has authored Armas, Limpieza de Sangre y Linaje. Reproduccion Social de Familias Poderosas de Murcia, siglos XVIXIX (2006) on family and aristocracy in Spain during the Early Modern period. Among his last publications, the most relevant are: Trans-national exchanges and circulation of new goods in Western Mediterranean Europe (eighteenth-century), Histoire, Societe et Economie, 4 (2010); Social Networks and Kinship in the Hispanic Monarchy. The Clientelistic System of the Kingdom of Murcia (XVIIthXVIIIth century), Historia Unisinos (Journal of the Brazilian University of Vale dos Rios), 14: (2010); and Costruzione di una identita nazionale attraverso il consumo: spagnolizzazione del consumo durante lIluminismo, in M. Profetti (ed.), Giudizi e pregiudizi. Percezione dellaltro e stereotipi tra Europa e Mediterraneo, Universit` a degli Studi di Firenze, 2009.