Basic Census Join Problem

[EthanGlaudemans]

I'm trying to join a census block shapefile, taken from here, with a census data table found here. The problem is the attribute tables don't align, in particular their GEOIDs. I've got no idea what to do, is it a problem with my data sources? Pictured below are the two hyperlinks, as well as the attribute tables from my two sources of data. 

EthanGlaudemans_1-1744339703847.png

EthanGlaudemans_0-1744339645223.png

EthanGlaudemans_2-1744339729603.pngEthanGlaudemans_3-1744339749740.png

[DanPatterson]

If one file from Alabama and one from Texas?  If so, you can't perform a "join" perhaps a "merge".

Join is used to associate attributes to a base file for an area

Add Join (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Merge combines things spatially

Merge (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

[EthanGlaudemans]

Hi Dan, thanks for the reply. I'm only using the 2020 shapefile, so just downloading the Texas blocks. A merge wouldn't work as the data I'm pulling from the census is only a table, so I need to use the GEOID to match the rows of data with the corresponding census block in the shapefile data. If you wanted to give it a try it should be easy to reach where I am, I'm thinking I'm just using the wrong data somehow but I'm not sure where else to get a shapefile for Dallas census blocks.

[DanPatterson]

not sure what is going on, but what I saw in your image was data from two separate geographic areas, which obviously isnt going to work

[EthanGlaudemans]

Definitely not, the census blocks I downloaded are for all of Texas while the census data is for Dallas County, so my idea was to clean the data if needed then do a join for the two so just the census blocks from dallas county would be joined + exported as a new file.

[DavidPike]

If there's no common field to match to or a logical way to create a common field e.g.

table 1 - GEOID000567 

table 2 - 567

-> Create new calculated field for table 2 and then match against -> 'GEOID000' + [table2]

Other than manually adding a matching attribute then joining - you'll need to find a new polygon data source.  I would imagine there's many alternatives.