The study of family change during industrialization has been hindered by the lack of adequate historical data. This paper attempts to overcome this obstacle by further refining Coale-Burch measures that can be used with existing census data. It shows the validity of these measures for France, uses them to analyze the effects of land holding, agriculture, illiteracy, & dispersed settlement on household complexity, & then analyzes the effects of household complexity on fertility, migration, suicide, divorce, religiosity, & care for the aged during the nineteenth century. (31 refs.)