Weekly update - December 15, 2021

Here is our weekly update for December 15, 2021. 

Wives of Sons and Grandsons

·         We’ve collected 10,778 wives of 9,924 sons and grandsons

·         Only one person is still working on wives. We are deciding whether another person can help her finish.

 

# Sons of veteran	3352
# Grandsons of veteran	6572
# Wives of sons and grandsons	10778
# Veterans complete	1932
Total # veterans	1959
% sample complete	98.6

 

·         Limited 1940 census variables for Sample B grandsons

o   Those of us who have finished our work on the wives sample are adding 1940 variables to the death screen for grandsons

o   We have completed 1026 soldiers or 56.2% of Sample B

·         It will not take us much longer to finish the limited 1940 variables. What should we do next? Add death screens for Sample B granddaughters?

 

MVCC Update

Now that finals are over, Giles is waiting to be set up as an NBER consultant before resuming work on the MVCC screen fixes, changes and report functions.

Some fun days in December

Thanks to AnnaLisa for giving us information on special days to celebrate this month. 

December 7- International Civil Aviation Day and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

December 8- Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day

December 11- Have a Bagel Day

December 12- Gingerbread House Day

December 13- Hot Cocoa Day

December 15- Cat Herders Day

December 16- Chocolate Covered Anything Day

December 18- Bake Cookies Day

December 25- Christmas Day

December 26- Thank You Note Day

December 27- Visit the Zoo Day

December 30- Bacon Day

December 31- New Year's Eve

Weekly update - December 1, 2021

Here is our weekly update for December 1, 2021. 

Wives of Sons and Grandsons

·         We’ve collected 10,495 wives of 9,650 sons and grandsons

 

# Sons of veteran	3267
# Grandsons of veteran	6383
# Wives of sons and grandsons	10495
# Veterans complete	1889
Total # veterans	1962
% sample complete	96.3

 

Update on Full-count Merging

·         Coralee has been working on the 1940 full count census merging and has discovered more problems than initially anticipated in merging with our data.  Here are the problems she has found:

 

o   The variables that the IPUMS people suggested merging on aren't in 1940 after all, not in the IPUMS file or in the GEDCOMs. Coralee has some alternate ideas for merging, but it will take longer to figure out.

 

o   The mechanical matching of the names (finding the most similar name on the page) is going to be very problematic for women with maiden/married names. Coralee thinks she has a way around this problem, but, again, it will just will take longer.

 

o   The biggest issue is that when she looks closely at one person in all three places (our sample, the full-count, and the census manuscript), the variables that we are interested in are null values in the full-count file, but present on the census manuscript. This is a sample size of one, she says, so maybe this problem isn't as widespread after all. She is looking at it closer today.

 

·         Coralee is also still working on getting occupation codes from 1930. With the amount of time it will take her to do 1940, she was wondering if maybe it would be better for the inputters to go back to the manuscripts for 1940 values and input them in the 1940 screen (or the 1940 section on the obit screen) while she finishes the 1930 work.  However, we realize we are limited in time before people’s contracts run out.