The Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel: Progress and Prospects

Steven Ruggles, University of Minnesota
Julia A. Drew, Minnesota Population Center
Catherine A. Fitch, University of Minnesota
J. David Hacker, University of Minnesota
Jonas Helgertz, University of Minnesota/Lund University
Matthew Sobek, University of Minnesota
John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota
Matt A. Nelson, University of Minnesota

This paper describes the IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel (IPUMS-MLP), a linked set of census and administrative records focused on the United States in the period since 1850. The core of the infrastructure consists of ten full-count censuses developed by IPUMS in collaboration with Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. The first version of IPUMS-MLP appeared in 2020 and included 208 million links across census years. In 2022, we added links to the Social Security “NUMIDENT” application data, which allowed us to improve coverage for women because it includes name changes. The next project phase will add information from a variety of additional sources, including data on cause of death, military records, and recent longitudinal studies. IPUMS-MLP is envisioned as a general framework for individual-level linked records in the United States over the past two centuries that can be continuously expanded and improved to incorporate the latest data sources as they become available.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 50. Methodological Innovations in Linking