Jobs that change many records at once. Where a tool has a Preview, it shows exactly what would happen and changes nothing — the other button does the work. Each result appears under the tool you ran.
Files prepared in data/ and pushed to the site. Both are safe
to run twice — neither makes a duplicate.
Adds the people, census records, occupations and relationships in the prepared
people_*.json files, and links them to their houses. Matches on person number
or name, and only fills blanks on anyone already in the record.
Loads each prepared works list onto the person who wrote them.
For a few people at a time, Split a House's Census and Unfiled records are quicker. This is for a whole house's worth.
Moves every census record from one property to another, and the resident links with them. Leave to blank to unfile them instead, back to the unfiled queue. Give person numbers to move one household out of a house holding several.
The census records often know more than the person records do. These copy it across — never overwriting anything already filled in.
Gives an undated occupation the years of the person's own census records that name it — "Nurse" dated from an 1891 return saying "Nurse (domestic)".
So they show on the People page, the group chips and the occupation filter.
Fills a blank birth place from the census. Anyone whose census records disagree with each other is left alone and listed for you to settle.
Pasted spreadsheets sometimes slip a column or bring their headings with them. These find the damage.
Lists records whose name is a column heading, or blank. Deletes nothing — each links to its record, where the delete button is.
A sex, a relationship ("Servant", "wife") or a dash left in the occupation field, skewing the counts. Preview names every one before anything is cleared.
Where "Married, Female" landed in the source field: the sex fills a blank on the person, the marital status moves to its own column, and only then is the source cleared.
The same person linked to the same house twice. Keeps one of each.
Somebody with two records for one census year — one filed to a house, one still sitting on the unfiled page under a house name. Removes the houseless copy. People genuinely waiting to be placed are left alone.
Lifts one census record onto a person of its own, with the age, birthplace and occupation off the same line of the return. Use it where an import has hung a servant on somebody who merely shares her name. The record number is on the person's page.
“Elizth” and “Eliz” become Elizabeth, “Geo.” George, “Wm” William — the first forename only, and only where the whole word is a known short form. A middle name or initial is left exactly as the page gave it. The tool below joins a short form to a full name where both are in the record; this is for the ones with nobody to be joined to, which otherwise stay abbreviated for ever. Preview names every change.
Catharine, Chris, Jos and Phil are deliberately left alone. Catharine is a real Victorian spelling rather than a short form; the other three stand for more than one name — Christine as well as Christopher, Josephine as well as Joseph, Philippa as well as Philip. They still help the merge tool below find two spellings of one person.
“Geo. Parr” beside George Parr, “Elizth Wareham” beside Elizabeth — one person entered twice because a transcription kept the enumerator's abbreviations. Pairs only where the surname and the expanded forename agree and the birth years are within two, keeps the fuller record, and leaves anything dismissed on the duplicates page alone.
Finds go to Gazette review as suggestions to confirm or dismiss, never straight onto a person.
Turns London Gazette links written into biographies into proper citations with issue and page.
Searches only people whose entry already suggests an honour or public office — a national search returns a namesake for most residents. Hits are filtered to their lifetime. Takes a few minutes; running it again picks up where it stopped.
Searches The National Archives for First World War medal cards (series WO 372) against people the record holds with a rank, a corps, or a death in a war period. A card gives no birth year, so nothing is written to anybody — each one is offered on the Medal cards page to confirm or pass. Preview first: it shows who would be searched without searching anybody.