Union Army Veterans, All Grown Up

Sven E. Wilson, Brigham Young University
Christopher Roudiez, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Noelle Yetter, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Heather Desomer, Center for Population Economics

This paper overviews the demographic research possibilities made possible from a major NIA-funded program project, Early Indicators, Intergenerational Processes, and Aging. Data collection began over two decades ago on a core random sample of almost 40,000 soldiers from the Union Army in the US Civil War. The collection is unique because it contains extensive demographic, economic, and medical data on these soldiers from childhood to death. In recent years that core longitudinal data has been expanded to include a large sample of African-American soldiers and an oversampling of soldiers from major US cities. Hundreds of historical maps containing public health data have been geocoded to allow placement of soldiers and their family members in a geospatial context. With newly granted funding, the project moves to the next generation as thousands of veterans will be linked to the demographic information available from the census and vital records of their children.