# Is there a variable about the Length of Residence in a place for the Census 1900, 1910, 1920, 1940 or 1950?

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-there-a-variable-about-the-length-of-residence-in-a-place-for-the-census-1900-1910-1920-1940-or-1950/2416>\
**Category:** USA\
**Created:** [June 28, 2018, 10:43am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-there-a-variable-about-the-length-of-residence-in-a-place-for-the-census-1900-1910-1920-1940-or-1950/2416 "2018-06-28T10:43:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![me.rubio371](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@me.rubio371](https://forum.ipums.org/u/me.rubio371)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 10:43am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-there-a-variable-about-the-length-of-residence-in-a-place-for-the-census-1900-1910-1920-1940-or-1950/2416/1 "2018-06-28T10:43:00Z")

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I can only find the Length of Residence in the United States for foreign-born population. Thanks

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**Author:** ![Erin\_Meyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Erin\_Meyer](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Erin_Meyer)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-there-a-variable-about-the-length-of-residence-in-a-place-for-the-census-1900-1910-1920-1940-or-1950/2416/2 "2018-06-29T19:45:00Z")

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Unfortunately, I don’t think the information you are looking for is consistently collected by the Census in years prior to 1960. The [SAMEPLAC](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/SAMEPLAC#description_section), [SAMEMET5](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/SAMEMET5#description_section), and [SAMESEA5](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/SAMESEA5#description_section) variables are all available in 1940, and the [SAMEMET1](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/SAMEMET1#description_section) and [SAMESEA1](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/SAMESEA1#description_section) variables are available in 1950. The [MOVEDIN](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/MOVEDIN#description_section) variable reports the number of years ago that people moved into their dwelling unit, but is only available from 1960 onward. Each of these variables may capture something close to what you are looking for, but are each slightly different from each other and are not available in all years from 1900-1950.

Without much information about your intended analysis, you may want to look into the [IPUMS Linked Samples](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/linked_data_samples.shtml). These files link records from the 1880 complete count file to the 1% samples of the 1850 through 1930 US census files. In each year you’ll be able to see if linked individuals lived in the same place between the two census years.