United States Census Bureau, Documentation and Methodology for Frequently Occurring Names in the U.S.–1990
“ Even in the last years of the 20th century, families tend to live close to each other, and it is not impossible to conceive a situation where all Americans with a certain surname appear in sample. Were that situation to occur it would be possible to overstate the frequency of that surname name by a factor of 40. ”
United States Census Bureau, Documentation and Methodology for Frequently Occurring Names in the U.S.–1990
“ The Census Bureau has a primary obligation to protect the confidentiality of individual responses to the Census. As part of this confidentiality commitment, the Census Bureau does not currently release individual census questionnaires (or any other information that could identify an individual) until 72 years after a Decennial Census was taken. ”
United States Census Bureau, Documentation and Methodology for Frequently Occurring Names in the U.S.–1990
“ Here the frequency would appear as 0.001 percent, but it is possible that that sample frequency may not be close to "truth".Ignoring clustering, (persons in the same household usually have the same surname) the coefficient of variation on a number of that magnitude would be approximately 12 percent. But most people who do not live alone share a last name with other people in that household. Thus the 63 persons with that rare name may be the result of 16 households, which would raise the coefficient of variation to approximately 25 percent. ”
