The data of the HSN can be divided into two categories: data from events and data with a more or less continuous character from the population registers. The nature and quality of the data is described at sources.

The HSN Research Persons (RP's) are sampled from the birth certificates out of the period 1812-1922 (for size and construction of the sample, see sampling). The figure gives an overview of the data gathered for each RP since the start of the HSN in 1991. In the first ten years the HSN concentrated on the data entry of all birth certificates and the death certificates of children who died before the age of ten years old. After the year 2000 more and more marriage certificates were entered and the HSN started also with the entry of data from the population register.

The fact that the HSN is not yet complete implies a selection problem that each researcher has to cope with. If and how the data are used is dependent on the research question and the selection the researcher will make out of the dataset (see more detailed information on the content of the HSN Database).

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