The sources allow to study Russian family structure from the beginning of the 19^th c. The census registers are the basic source. They usually contained data only on male peasants, lower town middle class (meschane), merchants of the 3d guild as those people were poll-tax payers. The female part of families was registered from 1816 (the 7^th census). The 7^th-the 10^th censuses papers listed all members  of each poll-tax family in a separate settlement or of any owner (for serfs) with notes on a head of the family and on relationship of the other family members for the time of the previous census plus notes  on any changes for the time of the current census (deaths, migrations, army recruiting). These materials allow to calculate the number of family members and the types of families according to an estate, a settlement or an owner.

Table 1. Average Number of Family Members, 1816

Place	1816	1959
M.Pupki (state peasants)	8.3	4.1
Rasskazovo	7.0 (serfs)	5.1 (all)
Bailovka (serfs)		9.4
Town of Morshansk	4,8 (meschane)	14.4 (all)

    Villages in early 19^th c. preserved extended families, while mechane tended to have families of smaller size which were structured differently - like a family embraced only parents with their children.

  Table 2. Types of Families, Rasskazovo (using S.Hoch typology) (%)

Types	Plant peas.		State peasants			Serfs
	1816	1858	1834	1850	1858	1816	1834	1858
1.1. Single widowers	1	1	2.5			1	6
1.2. Singles (unknown marital status)	4	2				3		5
2.1. Single consanguinites (brothers/sisters)			6			3
2.2. Other relatives living together	2	4	2.5			2		7
3.1. Couples	2	3	2.5			2		2
3.2. Couples with children	11	17	11	14	6	18		5
3.3. Widowers with children	31	2				2		2
3.4. Widows with children	1	5	2.5			3
3.5. Soldiers, wives with children							6
4.1. Couples with children and widowed parents	6	10		5	11	4	19	9
4.2. Couples with children and nephews/ nieces				3	3	0.5		2
4.3. Couples with children and unmarried brothers/sisters	6	1				2		4
4.4. Combinations of the named       combinations	2	8		3	3	5		7
5.1. Couples with married and unmarried children	3	14	14	14		8		9
5.2. Couples with married and unmarried children and grandchildren	6	21	20	24	46	28	37	32
5.3. Couples with married and unmarried children and nephews	5	1	6		11	3	13
5.4. Families of brothers/sisters with  married and unmarried children	17	8	26	32	17	11	6	7
5.5. Other types of extended families	3	4	6	5	3	4.5	13	9

 Table 3. Types of Families, Morshansk(using S.Hoch typology)(%)

Types	Merchant		Meschane
	1833	1850	1816	1850
1.1. Single widowers	1	5.5	2	7
1.2. Singles (unknown marital status)	3	4	7	27
2.1. Single consanguinites (brothers/sisters)	1		2	5
2.2. Other relatives living together		1.5	1	2
3.1. Couples	4	1.5	9	11
3.2. Couples with children	28	20	38	23.5
3.3. Widowers with children	1	2	2	2
3.4. Widows with children	1	2	4	4
3.5. Soldiers, wives with children	6	2	0.5
4.1. Couples with children and widowed parents	0.5	0.5	7	3
4.2. Couples with children and nephews/ nieces	6	1.5	0.5
4.3. Couples with children and unmarried brothers/sisters	6	4	1	0.5
4.4. Combinations of the named  combinations	19	21	9	7
5.1. Couples with married and unmarried children	1		3	1
5.2. Couples with married and unmarried children and grandchildren	7	10.5	9	2
5.3. Couples with married and  unmarried children and nephews	15	18	0.5
5.4. Families of brothers/sisters with      married and unmarried children			3.5	2
5.5. Other types of extended families			1	2

           The main source shortage of the census registers was of that a separate household was listed as a family so it formally  could have been an extended family but in fact it was divided into several independent ones. In pre-reform Russia  the authorities and the landlords hampered family partition, but we still guess whether those bans were really kept to.

   The census registers often note children or even one child as independent household members. In fact those were usually orphans, being the formal remnants of the families disintegrated between the two censuses, so they could hardly exist independently. Someone must have taken care of them.

   To trace the real family structure one should use some other types of sources containing the necessary data. Here we have the confessional lists. For the present we put in and analysed  data on serf families who had confessed in one of Rasskazovo parish in 1811. We also have the 1816 census data on the same families to compare these two sources. The lists of confession demonstrate the large groups of relatives which are also known from the church writings. The families at confession (8,3 members av.) came out larger than the census ones (7,0 members av.) and they were more patriarchal having had their heads 16 years older (58 v 42).

M.Pupki                     Rasskazovo           Rasskazovo

Types                                   census of 1816              census of 1816       conf.lists of 1811

1.1. 0,7                                0,9

1.2. 2,9                                2,7

2.1. 1,8                                2,8

2.2. 1,1                                2,2

3.1. 1,5                                2,5

3.2. 24,3                              17,5                       13,6

3.3. 2,2                                1,7

3.4. 0,4                                2,8

3.5. 0,4

4.1. 2,6                               4,4                         5,8

4.2. 0,7                                0,4

4.3. 2,4

4.4. 4,4                                5,3                         3,3

4.5. Vague relations                                                                                        3,3

5.1. 8,4                          7,1             

5.2. 18,0                            27,1                         42,2

5.3. 2,8                           1,9

5.4. 8,8                       10,5                          22,0

5.5. 30,1                     4,5                            0,7

   The peasant families structure in M.Pupki and Rasskazovo displayed the predominance of extended 3- and 4-generation families. A great share of ”other types” (with distant relatives) in M.Pupki suggests the presence of serfs listed as relatives in the state peasant families. The comparison of census registers and confessional lists for Rasskazovo displayed an absence of single children at confession supporting an idea that there were no such categories in real life.

   It is also obvious that consanguinites at confession were not necessarily a common household. Almost a half of one and the same families listed in the census registers had almost the same structure registered at confession. Some people had been born or died between the year of confession and the year of census that caused some slight differences. Another half of one and the same families displayed a more extended structure at confession on brother- and sisterhood.

  The census families were not larger than real ones, moreover, those who confessed were the traditional families of consanguinites (conscious about) realising their kinship, but having had a half of them leading their independent households.