HSN datarelease UT.03 is the first public HSN datarelease and contains the outcomes of the HSN basic sample in the province of Utrecht for the period (of birth) of 1812-1922. On a limited scale two 'forerunners' have already been distributed. The first, HSN datarelease 93.1 was created by Harry Ganzeboom on the occasion of the HSN symposium of June 10, 1994; in November 1994 an improved and more complete release, HSN datarelease 94.0, was created for the contributors to the symposium proceedings. In order to be consistent with the figures in the proceedings we resisted the natural inclination to enlarge the dataset with subsequently collected material.

The data in HSN datarelease UT.03 have been partly derived from records which are open to the public and partly from records which are not. The first category consists of all information which is dated before January 1, 1903; the second, of much of the later information.