Urban Patrilineal Kin Propinquity in the United States, 1880

Matt A. Nelson, University of Minnesota

The United States experienced a long-run decline in patrilineal kin propinquity between 1790 and 1940. While some evidence supports lower kin propinquity in urban areas compared to rural areas, previous estimates included some methodological shortcomings. Geocoded data corrects for some of the previous methodological issues. The urban patrilineal kin propinquity measure is updated using geocoded census data for 39 cities from the 1880 U.S. Federal Census. The results suggest most families with potential patrilineal kin lived within 0.14 miles of someone with the same surname, and 80% of families with potential patrilineal kin lived within 0.5 miles, approximately a ten-minute walk. Previous sequential methods appear to have overestimated potential kin within the same urban enumeration district by four percentage points. Similar life course patterns in the geocoded and sequential results suggest that overall, the sequential method represents a reliable method to estimate potential patrilineal kin within the same enumeration district. Urban to rural comparisons suggest that urban kin propinquity was lower than rural kin propinquity by 4.5 percentage points. Since distances between potential kin were smaller in urban areas, kin networks in urban areas may have operated differently than in rural areas.

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 Presented in Session 181. Urban Families