The Netherlands has two key databases to study of social inequalities across the life course and over generations: the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) for persons born in the Netherlands from 1812 until 1922, and the System of Social statistical Datasets (SSD) with register data on all current inhabitants. The HSNDB and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) aimed to establish a Proof of Concept linkage of the HSN and SSD, allowing for the historical life trajectories to be linked forward to contemporary outcomes. For the Proof of Concept we tested whether linkage could be established on the basis of the combination of three birth dates (ego, father, mother), date of marriage, and sex. We developed an initial linking strategy which we validated and refined based on non-unique links and deviating information between HSN and SSD. Additionally, we established a link between the written (HSN) and coded (SSD) places of birth, and used this information in the validation process. The revised linking strategy results in linkage of 77% of the linkable HSN records. The stringent validation criteria of the linking steps and evaluation of the linked result appear to indicate that we provide a successful Proof of Concept for the linkage of the HSN and SSD as conducted by Statistics Netherlands.

version 1: Original matching sample
version 2: Enriched matching sample
version 3: Added Id_mother + Id_father to HSN_RP_child_SSD
version 4: Minor update in the standardisation of place names