# Schema: Clarke County deaths by period, race, cause and age, 1853-1896

Dataset `clarke-deaths-1853-1896`, version 1.0.0, published 2026-10-14. One row per record; the CSV and the "Records" sheet of the XLSX carry the same columns in the same order.

| Column | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `table` | string | Which table the row belongs to: cause_by_period (deaths by period, race group and cause group), age_by_period (by period, race group and age at death) or by_year (by year and race group). |
| `period` | string | The period of the death: 1853-1860, 1861-1865, 1866-1879, 1880-1896, or "year not known". |
| `year` | integer | The year of the death, in the by_year table only. Filed by the printed date, or by the year written on the register page where the printed date could not be read. |
| `race_group` | string | white, colored, enslaved or not stated, grouped from race as the register records it ("white", "colored", "slave"). |
| `category` | string | The cause group (cause_by_period) or age group (age_by_period). Cause groups are research groupings of 19th-century terms, not diagnoses. "not stated" means the register gives no cause or age; "not shown" means the value is not shown on the /deaths/ card because it did not read cleanly from the scan. |
| `deaths` | integer | The number of death entries in the group. A count of reported deaths, not a rate. |
| `group_deaths` | integer | All death entries for the same period and race group, the base for a share within that group. Empty in the by_year table. |

An empty cell means the value is not recorded in the source, or could not be read from it. It never means zero.