IPUMS Linked Census Data
IPUMS disseminates full count census enumerations for nine census years from 1850 to 1940. These full count data, covering almost 700 million individual records, are the fruit of collaboration between IPUMS and the world's two largest genealogical organizations—Ancestry.com and FamilySearch—to leverage genealogical data for scientific purposes. Full count data have opened the possibility of automated record linkages across census years to construct millions of individual life histories and trace millions of families over multiple generations.
Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel
The IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel project links individuals' records between censuses. The current MLP data consist of links across the censuses of 1850 through 1940. Linked Individuals are assigned a unique identifier that is consistent across censuses. We plan to build on this work in future releases. We expect that IPUMS MLP will eventually serve as a general framework that can incorporate records from a wide range of sources.
Next steps
We plan several enhancements to increase the number of high-quality linkages. Future improvements will incorporate additional links across adjacent census years, link individuals in non-adjacent census years, and increase links using administrative records. We will also be working on data dissemination tools to enable users to easily create customized datasets of linked data.
Project team
Steven Ruggles, Principal Investigator (MPI)
John Robert Warren, Principal Investigator (MPI)
Catherine Fitch, Co-investigator
J. David Hacker, Co-investigator
Evan Roberts, Co-investigator
Matthew Sobek, Co-investigator
Matt A. Nelson, Research Scientist
Jacob Wellington, Hlink Software Developer
Martha Bailey (University of California, Los Angeles), Consultant
Joseph Ferrie (Northwestern University), Consultant
Joseph Price (Brigham Young University), Consultant
Citation and terms of use
Cite both IPUMS MLP and the Full Count IPUMS Ancestry data:
Jonas Helgertz, Steven Ruggles, John Robert Warren, Catherine A. Fitch, J. David Hacker, Matt A. Nelson, Joseph P. Price, Evan Roberts, and Matthew Sobek. IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel: Version 1.1 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2023. https://doi.org/10.18128/D016.V1.1
Steven Ruggles, Catherine A. Fitch, Ronald Goeken, J. David Hacker, Matt A. Nelson, Evan Roberts, Megan Schouweiler, and Matthew Sobek. IPUMS Ancestry Full Count Data: Version 3.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2021. https://doi.org/10.18128/D014.V3.0
Publications and research reports making use of IPUMS USA should be added to our Bibliography.
Funding
IPUMS MLP is funded by the National Institute on Aging grant R01AG057679.
Contact us
For questions about IPUMS linked data, contact ipumsres@umn.edu.