Errata and User Notes for the TIGER/Line 1999 files

Errata Note

We had confirmed a problem in Record Type 3 in the 1999 TIGER/Line files. In approximately 150 counties, some geographic entity codes were missing from some Record Type 3 records. For example, on Record Type 3 the 1990 state, county, county subdivision, census tract, and block codes appeared in either the right or left fields, but were blank in the fields for the opposite side even though the record was not along the county boundary. The missing codes occurred on either the right or the left side of a Record Type 3 record. Here is the list of counties that we have replaced.

The U.S. Census Bureau has corrected the 1999 TIGER/Line files that contained these errors, and have placed them on the Internet. The DVD version of the 1999 TIGER/Line files will not contain this error.

The following additional or corrected information became available after the U.S. Census Bureau prepared and released the 1999 TIGER/Line files and/or technical documentation.

User Note 1

At the time of the creation of the 1999 TIGER/Line files, the U.S. Census Bureau was awaiting Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Codes from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for some Census 2000 geographic entities. Where a FIPS code was not available, umlauted "y's" (ÿÿ) appear. The umlauted "y's" also may appear in Record Type C where the DATAYR equals 1999. Because of the delay in the production of the 1999 TIGER/Line files, the "current" governmental unit boundaries in the 1999 TIGER/Line files generally represent the January 1, 2000 governmental unit boundaries as reported in the 2000 Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). As a result, the 1999 TIGER/Line files only contain 1990 and tentative Census 2000 geographic entity data. Rather than modifying the data structure of Record Type C, and further delaying the release of the 1999 TIGER/Line files, the U.S. Census Bureau decided to release them even though umlauted y's appear in Record Type C. Data users should ignore those records appearing in Record Type C with a DATAYR of 1999 that contain umlauted y's.

User Note 2

On pages 4-26 and 4-28 of the 1999 TIGER/Line Technical Documentation, in the section on census tracts, the documentation states:
"The TIGER/Line files use the right-most two characters in the census tract field for the suffix. Where a census tract suffix does not exist, the suffix is zero filled in machine-readable products, but blank in printed reports, on census maps, and in the 1998 and earlier TIGER/Line files. Beginning with the 1999 TIGER/Line files, zeros will appear in the right-most two characters in the census tract field where a census tract suffix does not exist."

In the 1999 TIGER/Line files, zeros appear in the right-most two characters of the census tract number only in the Census Voting District/Census Tract field (field name VTDTRACT) in Record Type C. On Record Types 1, 3, A and S, the right-most two characters in the census tract number continue to be blank.

User Note 3

In reviewing Census TIGER, we have found a small number of cases where the 106th Congressional District boundaries were inadvertently moved; for example, from the 1990 governmental unit boundaries to the current governmental unit boundaries. The U.S. Census Bureau has corrected the 106th Congressional District boundaries in Census TIGER, however some 1999 TIGER/Line files were created before the corrections were completed. Corrections were made in Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.