The Bureau of the Census conducted the Forward Trace Study to test tracing strategies necessary in an evaluation of the decennial census with a reverse record check. In a reverse record check, a sample is drawn from the population sometime before the census traced forward to the census, and matched to the census. A sample was drawn from the 1980 census and supplemented by a sample of those missed by the census, a sample of immigrants and a sample of births. The people in the four samples were traced over the years 1980 to 1985.

The reverse record check has been used effectively in the evaluations of the Canadian censuses since 1961. The underlying logic in a reverse record check is that, with time, a person’s chance of being interviewed changes. For example, some people are very mobile during their late teens and early twenties but are less mobile as children and older adults. They are more likely to be interviewed during these more stable periods of their life.

The Forward Trace Study does not consider the feasibility of the reverse record check for evaluating the census because there was no census in 1985 available for matching. However, the study focuses on an essential ingredient, the tracing techniques.