I only want to download the 1850, 1860 and 1900 censuses for virginia. How do I limit the data extracts?

1

I only want to download the 1850, 1860 and 1900 censuses for virginia. How do I limit the data extracts?

2

For IPUMS USA, you can use the Select Cases feature to limit your extract to a subset of records that only have the characteristics you are interested in. You will need to select your focal samples and include the STATEICP variable in your data extract (along with any other variables of interest). When creating your extract, click on the “Select Cases” option, then restrict your file based on the Virginia code in the STATEICP variable.

3

Is there a source for ICPR county and/or independent cities in Virginia? When I attempted to open my data extract using the unachiever app, the file was a VLC not a data file. Can this be done differently to avoid the Mac etract error?

4

Thank you.

To restrict the sample more to one or two counties, we need the ICPR county/independent city codes rather than the FIPS codes. Correct? If so, where are the ICPR codes found other than Ann Arbor?

5

I will answer your questions about decompressing the data file and restricting your file to individual counties in turn.

We generally recommend The Unarchiver for decompressing files on Macs because this tool can effectively process the .gz extension to produce a .dat file; the default Archive Utility sometimes runs into trouble with this extension type. You could also decompress the file at the command line using the “gunzip” command. Note that be default our data files are delivered as fixed-width .dat files that must be read into a statistical package using the corresponding syntax file (we provide set-up files for Stata, SAS, and SPSS) or using the corresponding client library (ipumsr or ipumspy). If you are using ipumsr or ipumspy, you do not need to decompress the file before using it; these client libraries can read the compressed dataset.

IPUMS USA includes the variables COUNTYICP (see code list here), which can be used with the Select Cases tool to retain only certain counties in your data file. Note that COUNTYICP is state-dependent and must be used in conjunction with STATEICP or STATEFIP to uniquely identify counties, and that not all counties are identified/identifiable in the microdata after 1950.