The method of demographic analysis is applied to individual birth and death records obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics other wise known as NCHS to produce a series of estimates of the population of age 0 at the time of the 1990 Census. These estimates differ in the way that race or Hispanic origin is assigned, and they are compared to the corresponding 1990 Census figures to determine the degree of consistency between the race and ethnicity classifications used by the two agencies and the effect on this consistency of changing the rules by which race and Hispanic origin are assigned. The principal findings are that assigning births the race and Hispanic origin of the mother produces the greatest consistency with Census results and that under this rule the agreement between Census and NCHS on Hispanic origin is good and the agreement on race is good except for a problem with Indians