The Census Linking Project allows researchers to create longitudinal datasets from historical US Census records (1850-1940) in order to study processes that unfold over time, such as intergenerational mobility and immigrant assimilation.

The project uses several different automated methods, depicted in the figure, to link individuals across Census pairs using first and last name, year of birth and state/country of birth. Details of these linking methods can be found in the paper “Automated Linking of Historical Data” by Ran Abramitzky, Leah Platt Boustan, Katherine Eriksson, James J. Feigenbaum, and Santiago Pérez.

The Census Linking Project is the result of a collaboration between researchers from various institutions including Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Boston University, UC-Davis, BYU and Minnesota Population Center.