Full Citation

Title: Working Papers A New Strategy for Linking Historical Censuses: A Case Study for the IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2020

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.18128/IPUMS2020-03

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Abstract: This paper presents a new probabilistic method of record linkage, developed using the U.S. full count censuses of 1900 and 1910 but applicable to a range of different sources of historical records. The method was designed to exploit a more comprehensive set of individual and contextual characteristics present in historical census data, aiming to obtain a machine learning algorithm that better distinguishes between multiple potential matches. Our results demonstrate that the method achieves a match rate that is twice as high other currently popular methods in the literature while at the same time also achieving greater accuracy. In addition, the method only performs negligibly worse than other algorithms in resembling the target population.

Url: https://assets.ipums.org/_files/ipums/working_papers/ipums_wp_2020-03.pdf

User Submitted?: No

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

Series Title: IPUMS Working Papers

Publication Number: 2020-03

Institution: IPUMS

Pages:

Publisher Location:

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Methodology and Data Collection, Other

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