The Danish Multi-Generation Register
The Danish Multi-Generation Register
The Danish Multi-Generation Register (MGR) enables researchers, for the first time, to trace family relation across multiple generations. By linking historical parish records with the CPR Register (Denmark’s Civil Registration System), MGR creates new opportunities for research into health, social mobility and economic outcomes.
How MGR expands register-based research
For decades, Denmark has been internationally recognised for its unique population registers, which enable researchers to investigate patterns and relationships that are difficult, if not impossible, to study elsewhere. With the establishment of the Danish Multi-Generation Register (MGR), these opportunities have expanded significantly.
MGR extends the family relations data available in the CPR Register backwards in time, allowing researchers to examine how health conditions, social factors and economic circumstances are transmitted across generations.
Historical family relationships linked to the CPR Register
The MGR project is based on Denmark’s historical parish records, in which clergy carefully recorded births, family relations and deaths over several centuries. Until recently, these records were difficult to use on a large scale. Through advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, however, the data have now been digitised, structured and linked to the CPR Register.
As a result, researchers can trace family connections back to 1920 and construct extended pedigrees that include parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives.
In this video, you can learn how the Danish Multi-Generation Register was developed and created, presented by:
- Jeppe Klok Due, Senior Advisor, Danish National Archives
- Anders Søgaard, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen
- Carsten B. Pedersen, Professor, National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University
The video is in Danish with subtitles in English and Danish.
From parish records to a national research infrastructure
The establishment of MGR has been a large-scale collaboration between the Danish National Archives, the National Centre for Register-Based Research at Aarhus University, and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen. The project has been made possible through funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
The project has involved the digitisation of 22,000 parish record volumes containing information on approximately five million births. AI models were first used to structure information extracted from images of the parish records, after which advanced handwriting recognition models were used to interpret the handwritten text.
Data linkage has been based on family trio information, consisting of an individual and their parents. This approach has made it possible to identify:
- 1 million new parent-child relationships
- 6 million new full-sibling relationships
- 7 million new cousin relationships
Research and societal impact
The Danish Multi-Generation Register supports world-leading register-based research and further strengthens Denmark’s position as an international pioneer in the field.
MGR creates opportunities for groundbreaking research across a wide range of disciplines, particularly within healthcare, prevention and the social sciences.
Three areas where MGR makes a difference
Improving personalised medicine
MGR makes it possible to study hereditary conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and mental disorders, across family networks. This can contribute to more accurate risk assessments and support the development of increasingly personalised treatment strategies.
Identifying elevated risk
By providing a more complete and accurate family history, MGR can help identify individuals at increased risk of developing specific conditions, enabling preventive interventions and healthcare resources to be targeted more effectively.
Understanding social inheritance
Within the social and economic sciences, MGR opens new opportunities to study how educational attainment, income and social conditions are transmitted across generations. It also provides deeper insights into long-term demographic patterns and societal change.
The future of the Danish Multi-Generation Register
A beta version of MGR is already available to researchers through the Danish National Archives and Denmark’s Data Window (Danmarks Datavindue). The beta release enriches the CPR Register with family relations for approximately one million individuals.
Our vision is to develop MGR into a comprehensive and representative national research infrastructure covering all individuals born in Denmark from 1940 onwards, as well as a substantial proportion of those born between 1920 and 1940.
The project will continue until 2029.
Interested in learning more?
Explore research opportunities with MGR
Discover how the Danish Multi-Generation Register can support and strengthen your research. Page in Danish.
Access the Multi-Generation Register
Historical family relations for one million Danes are available through Denmark’s Data Window and the Danish National Archives. Page in Danish.
Study on familial risk of mental disorders in the Lancet Psychiatry
Read the Article based om the MGR: Absolute and Relative Risks of Mental Disorders in Families: A Danish Register-Based Study.
Article on MGR in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health
Read the article Towards More Comprehensive Nationwide Familial Aggregation Studies in Denmark: The Danish Civil Registration System versus the Lite Danish Multi-Generation Register.
Learn more about text recognition in the MGR
Read the conference paper Date Recognition in Historical Parish Records, which describes the text recognition methods used in the MGR project.