Full Citation

Title: A New Strategy for Linking U.S. Historical Censuses: A Case Study for the IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2022

ISBN:

ISSN: 19401906

DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2021.1985027

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: This paper presents a probabilistic method of record linkage, developed using the U.S. full count censuses of 1900 and 1910 but applicable to many sources of digitized historical records. The method links records using a two-step approach, first establishing high confidence matches among men by exploiting a comprehensive set of individual and contextual characteristics. The method then proceeds to link both men and women by leveraging links between households established in the first step. While only the first stage links can be directly comparable to other popular methods in research on the U.S., our method yields both considerably higher linkage rates and greater accuracy while only performing negligibly worse than other algorithms in resembling the target population.

Url: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01615440.2021.1985027

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Helgertz, Jonas; Price, Joseph; Wellington, Jacob; Thompson, Kelly J.; Ruggles, Steven; Fitch, Catherine A.

Periodical (Full): Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History

Issue: 1

Volume: 55

Pages: 12-29

Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data

Topics: Population Data Science

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