Table 2.
Partial list of Variables in the IPUMS Mortality Census Datasets, 1850-1880
| Census year | 1850 | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name of deceased person | Restricted use only |
Restricted use only |
Restricted use only |
Restricted use only |
| Color | X | X | X | X |
| Sex | X | X | X | X |
| Age | X | X | X | X |
| Free or slave | X | X | ||
| Marital Status | X | X | X | X |
| Married or widowed | X | X | X | |
| Single, married, widowed or divorced | X | |||
| Place of birth | X | X | X | X |
| Parentage (mother, father of foreign birth) | X | X | ||
| Occupation | inc. | inc. | inc. | inc. |
| Month of death | X | X | X | X |
| Cause of death | X | X | X | X |
| Number of days ill | X | X | ||
| Length of time resident in country | X | |||
| Name of place disease was contracted | X | |||
| Name of attending physician | X | |||
| State | X | X | X | X |
| County | X | X | X | X |
| Place (Township, district, city, etc.) | X | X | X | X |
| Family number | inc. | inc. | ||
| Historical ID of reporting household in population census | X | X | ||
| Number of decedents in dataset | 298,870 | 387,206 | 419,927 | 728,858 |
| Number of decedents in published data | 323,098 | 394,153 | 492,263 | 756,898 |
| Percentage of decedents in microdata | 92.5% | 98.2% | 85.3% | 96.3% |
| Number of decedents linked to family in population census | 209,557 | 251,037 | ||
| Percentage of decedents linked to population census | 49.9% | 34.4% |
Notes: Restricted versions of the data are available for each nineteenth century census. The restricted versions include names, street address when available, and the input data (strings and coded). Accessing these data does require specific stipulations in order to use, and interested users should contact ipums@umn.edu or ipumsres@umn.edu to request access to these data. Variables denoted by "X" are census questions with avaiable data in a given year and coded by IPUMS. Variables denoted by "C" were constructed using logical rules. "Inc." indicates census questions signficantly incomplete or with signficant errors in the dataset. Some of the original manuscript returns do not survive or could not be located and processed. States with a sigificant amount of missing mortality data include California (1870 [partial]); Illinois (1870 [partial]); Kentucky (1850 [partial]); Mississippi (1880 [partial]); Missouri (1870 [partial]); Nebraska (1870 [partial]); New Mexico (1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880); Ohio (1850 [partial], 1870, 1880 [partial]); Pennsylvania (1870 [partial]); and West Virginia (1860). Users should excercise caution when combining mortality census data with population census data to construct mortality rates.