Progress Report, Summer 2010

The North Atlantic Population Project in its current phase has three specific goals: (1) expand the chronological dimension of the database by incorporating data from additional census years for each country; (2) link individuals between censuses to permit longitudinal analysis; and (3) improve the web-based tools for disseminating data and documentation.

In July 2010, we added data from the United States and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (a territory in northern Germany) and linked data across samples in the United States and Norway. Our new datasets from the United States include a series of samples from 1850 to 1870 and 1900 to 1910. We also added an expanded version of the 1880 United States dataset containing additional education and disability variables. The expanded 1880 dataset from the United States is a 1-in-10 national random sample of the population with a 1-in-5 minority oversample, where “minority” includes persons whose reported race was Native American or African American, whose race or birthplace was Chinese or China, or whose name or birthplace indicated Hispanic origin. The 1819 sample from Mecklenburg-Schwerin is the oldest harmonized dataset in NAPP and includes full count data for the city of Rostock.

We have linked data across samples within the countries of Norway and the United States. We have linked males across all three census years in the Norway datasets from 1865 to 1900. In the United States, we have linked 7 pairs of census years involving the 1880 complete count sample. The linked years include: 1850-1880, 1860-1880, 1870-1880, 1880-1900, 1880-1910, 1880-1920, and 1880-1930. We have created three independent linked samples for each paired year: linked men, linked women, and linked married couples. For more information on the linked samples, refer to the linked samples page.

At the 2009 annual meetings of the Social Science History Association, in Long Beach, California, NAPP organized 3 sessions of research on NAPP data presented by NAPP users and partners. In fall 2010, the NAPP consortium is publishing a special issue of Historical Methods containing articles detailing methodological innovations from the project.

In October 2008, we released a new version of the existing NAPP datasets from Canada, Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), Norway, Sweden and the United States. We made significant changes to our web interface to improve user flexibility in browsing the site and to accommodate the growing collection of samples and variables.

Our next release will include Icelandic datasets and the 1852 Canada sample.

Progress Report Archive