Project Link-Lives

The purpose of collecting and linking the extensive information about the Danish population from 1787 to 1923 has been to create a foundation for research across a wide range of scientific fields – for example within health sciences (such as disease prevalence), social sciences, or historical demography (such as social mobility, immigration, and family patterns).

The large volume of historical person-level data, and the connections established between them, provides insight into patterns across generations. This enables researchers to investigate social and biological aspects of human life in new ways.

The data originate from numerous sources and are stored across different archives. Any genealogist knows how time-consuming it is to gather sufficient sources and information to reconstruct relationships and entire life courses.

This is precisely the task that the Link-Lives project has undertaken—though on a far larger scale: for the entire population. The mapping and linking of the vast historical personal data have been carried out using computer technology, machine learning, and domain expertise provided by historical specialists.

The realization of the extensive Link-Lives project builds on many years of work by volunteers who have transcribed millions of entries from censuses, parish registers, burial records, and police registration cards. Their transcription work has made these historical sources digitally accessible and searchable.

It is the data created by these volunteers that have now been linked and transformed into a research resource—one that will deepen our understanding of our ancestors and of ourselves.

The project was carried out from 2019 to 2025 in collaboration between, among others, the Danish National Archives, the University of Copenhagen (the Saxo Institute and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research), the Copenhagen City Archives, and the American genealogy company Ancestry.

The project leaders were Anne Løkke (Professor of History at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen) and Barbara A. Revuelta (Senior researcher at the Danish National Archives).

The project received a total of 33 million DKK in funding from the Innovation Fund Denmark and the Carlsberg Foundation.

You can search the life courses created by the project, as well as the transcribed sources on which they are based, via the Link-Lives search interface, now hosted by the Danish National Archives. You can also download the latest data release (Release 2) from the National Archives’ collection of digitally created data.

Download Link-Lives Release 2 (1787–1921) 

The final portion of the data will be published as Release 3 in early 2026.

The image at the top of the page depicts the married couple Rolf and Olivia Harboe with three children on the garden steps of their house on Strandvejen in Aarhus, spring 1895. (Unknown photographer, Copenhagen City Archives)

Find the image at kbhbilleder.dk.