{
  "id": "2004-january-february-delving-into-ancestry-with-sf4-data",
  "slug": "2004-january-february-delving-into-ancestry-with-sf4-data",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2004-january-february-delving-into-ancestry-with-sf4-data.html",
  "year": 2004,
  "month": "January • February",
  "monthNum": 1,
  "headline": "Delving into ancestry with SF4 data",
  "kicker": "SPOTLIGHT: CENSUS REPORTING",
  "author_name": "Paul Overberg",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "USA Today",
  "summary": "Paul Overberg explains the power of Census Summary File 4 for profiling 336 distinct racial and ethnic groups, highlighting reporting examples and methodological constraints like sampling error.",
  "keywords": [
    "Census",
    "SF4",
    "Demographics"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Demographics & Census",
    "Data & Databases",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "American FactFinder"
  ],
  "full_text": "Think of the Census 2000 summary files (SF1 through SF4) as a choir that sings the story of your community.\n\nThe full choir is SF1, all the voices in simple melodies. SF3 is smaller, chosen from the full choir to simplify the director's task of blending representative voices in more complex melodies.\n\nBy design, some voices emerge at times from each choir to sing solo, or in counterpoint. These are the separate tabulations by race and Hispanic ethnicity. Their stories ring clearly.\n\nBut we know the choir has more distinct voices embedded in its harmony. If we could hear them alone, we could hear their stories clearly. We could even hear the subtle differences between the melodies of Welsh and Scots, Kiowa and Comanche, Bulgarians and Romanians, Lebanese and Syrians.\n\nHence SF2 and SF4. In these files, each voice can emerge to sing solo. Are you a good enough director to lead them?",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2002-mayjune-using-census-data-for-non-census-stories",
      "score": 0.342
    },
    {
      "slug": "2000-januaryfebruary-census-workshops",
      "score": 0.172
    },
    {
      "slug": "2001-mayjune-census-2000-heavy-lifting-ahead",
      "score": 0.17
    },
    {
      "slug": "1998-november-census-preparation",
      "score": 0.168
    },
    {
      "slug": "2002-september-october-census-workshops-scheduled-for-reporters-editors",
      "score": 0.161
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2004-january-february-delving-into-ancestry-with-sf4-data.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2004-january-february-delving-into-ancestry-with-sf4-data.json"
}