I am interested in using the IPUMS Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel data to study farm households in particular counties in the 1800s. Since this study would focus on agricultural issues, I was interested in linking the IPUMS data to data collected from individual census agricultural manuscripts (scanned images of census forms). This would be to bring in extra data about farm operations, with the link to the IPUMS data made based on the farm operator.
My guess is this sort of linking is not allowed because it violates the IPUMS user agreement to not link to enumeration images. However, I wanted to get explicit guidance about that from IPUMS staff.
Also, it seems from some other forum posts, that an important purpose of the ban on linking to enumeration images is to protect privacy, including names and addresses. If my study did not explicitly release anybody’s name or address, would this open the door for linking or would that still not be allowed?
I am asking since I would very much like to take advantage of the longitudinal aspect of the IPUMS data. However, if I cannot bring in the agricultural census data in this way, so be it.
Thank you.
Thank you for your careful consideration of the terms of use for the IPUMS full count census files.
To link full count census data and agricultural census schedule data using names and available geographical information, you will likely need to apply to access the restricted use files. The publicly available full count files on IPUMS USA do not contain respondent names (the representative 1%-5% samples contain names in NAMEFRST and NAMELAST). Due to the size of the representative samples, only a small portion of your population of interest will be linkable using names in the public files. It is possible to obtain respondent names in the 1850 and 1880 full count files through IPUMS International (see the historical US samples 1850a and 1880a), but these do not allow for linking with the Multigenerational Longitudinal Panel (MLP). The restricted use files however allow you to obtain access to the names and addresses of your population of interest as well as link them using the MLP.
If you plan to apply for the restricted use data for this analysis, then we may be able to provide you with permission to link the data from the enumeration images. This will depend on the specifics of the project and what data you plan to disseminate. If you plan to apply for the data, please reach out to us at ipums@umn.edu with some more information about your project and I will be able to share the application materials with you.