The Role of Population Books in Interpretation of History

In the Ottoman Empire, in the modern sense, for the first time in the population censuses. Began during the Mahmut II period, in 1829 and it continued until the beginning of the XX. century. Who performed at regular intervals, the secounts are in line with military and economic purposes, as a general, citizens in Anatolia and Rumelia was limited to men. Books containing the population censuses made, population changes and explanations are called Population Books. These books, which are a resource to be applied in the sense of the quality and quantity of the population in the Ottoman Empire, also provide information on various topics from the ethnic and religious structure of the country to the tradition of giving names. An important part of these books, hand written by the Ottoman alphabet, is presently classified in the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives according to the administrative units. The aim of this study is to reveal the function of the population registers