Researchers at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) have created a database linking people recorded in the U.S. censuses from 1850 to 1940. Record linking is the process of combining a subject’s information from multiple datasets. With over 700 million links, the database is the largest source of record links among U.S. censuses. Researchers can use the database to study people over time, access data from multiple sources, and account for people who changed their name or moved in between censuses.
Image credit: Flickr user Daniel X O’Neil
