Dutch international migration statistics, 1820-1880: an analysis of linked multinational nominal files

"International migration statistics in the nineteenth century are acknowledged to be deficient and biased, but there are few source-critical studies to determine the extent of underreporting and omissions. This article provides a critical analysis of the statistics of Dutch emigration to North America in the period 1835-1880, based on the method of nominal record-linkage of computer files derived from Netherlands emigration lists and U.S. ship passenger manifests. Published and unpublished official records in the Netherlands, U.S.A. and Canada are used to determine the extent of underreporting, the structural biases in the migration data and the 'true' annual Dutch immigration rate to the United States."