Because US Census Bureau reports summarize population counts through cross-tabulation of individual or family characteristics, the criteria for which changes over time, the information is not ideal for analytic research, especially in history. Through the release of census data in "public use sample" form, microdata census samples covering the last one hundred years will soon be available (except for the years 1920, 1930, and 1980). Important differences exist between these important samples, however, in the following categories: census format and the consequent sample format, units of enumeration and sampling, strategies of constructing the samples, methods of reporting household composition, geographic position, ethnicity, economic status, education, and literacy.

In the mid-nineteenth century, about 70 percent of persons aged 65 or older resided with their adult children; by the end of the twentieth century, only about 16 percent did so. According to the consensus of scholarly opinion, the simplification of the living arrangements of the aged during the twentieth century resulted primarily from an increase in the resources of the aged, which enabled increasing numbers of elderly to afford independent living. My analysis supports a different interpretation: the evidence suggests that the decline of the multigenerational family occurred mainly because of increasing opportunities for the young and declining parental control over their children.

Revisionist historians maintain that the aged in nineteenth-century America and north-western Europe usually preferred to reside alone or with only their spouse. According to this interpretation, the aged ordinarily resided with their adult children only out of necessity, especially in eases of poverty or infirmity. This article challenges that position, arguing that in mid-nineteenth-century America coresidence of the aged with their children was almost universal, and that the poor and sick aged were the group most likely to live alone. The article suggests that the decline of the multigenerational family in the twentieth century is connected to the rise of wage labour and the diminishing importance of agricultural and occupational inheritance.

This article describes a new initiative at the Minnesota Population Center (MPC) to create linked representative samples of individuals and family groups from the censuses of 1860, 1870, 1900 and 1910 to the 1880 census. This set of linkedsamples will provide new opportunities for researchers to carry out individual level analyses of social and geographic mobility and family transitions.This study differs from past efforts to link persons across census years in one key respect. The central goal of previous studies has been to maximize the proportion of the population linked. Our primary goals, however, are to minimize selection bias and maximize representativeness of the linked cases.To achieve these goals, we are prepared to sacrifice a significant number of demonstrably valid links.The project takes advantage of an extraordinary new data source, a complete transcription of the 1880 census of the United States. We will also capitalize on recent advances in record linkage technology.

On the two hundredth anniversary of the first census of Norway, Denmark, and Iceland it is important to recall the history of the census and of - what to many is a little-known resource for population research - census microdata. The population census became universal only in the last half of the twentieth century. Now, anonymized census microdata is beginning to be recognized as a valuable new source for researchers and policy makers. From a review of practices in the United States and elsewhere, this paper argues that issues of statistical confidentiality and standards for the use of census microdata are rapidly being resolved and that a revolution in usage of these valuable data is already underway.