A New Sample of Males Linked from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1850 U.S. Federal Census of Population to the 1860 U.S. Federal Census Manuscript Schedules

This article describes a new sample of 4938 males linked from the new U.S. Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 1850 federal census of population to the manuscript schedules of the 1860 federal census of population....After reviewing the existing work on individuals linked across the 1850s I describe the collection of the new sample in detail. I then use these data to examine the geographic mobility of the population (in particular movement to the western frontier). The Appendix contains new life tables for the 1850s--based on manuscript data from the mortality schedules of the 1850 census--that were used to estimate how many survivors could be expected between 1850 and 1860 in the linkage process. (EXCERPT)