Abstract: The Shengjing Imperial Household Registers recorded demographic data on individuals at three year intervals. The registers include individual information on the relationship to household head, name, age, marital status, death, and migration. Although many scholars have used these data, some basic information is unclear, such as the form of household register data and the sources, identity, and political and economical status of people, among other things. In this essay the author examines the records of individuals included in the imperial household registers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in an effort to clarify some of these issues.