FLHIG

Family and Local History
Indexing Group

Selected articles from the Newsletter

This article first appeared in SIGGNL 8   (February 1995)

The PRINDEX program for indexing parish registers etc.
by Gerry Allen
 

When transcribing genealogical records with the aid of a computer, some users exploit standard database packages, entering the data in discrete fields for further manipulation, whilst others key data into a word processor as text.  In neither case are quality indexes automatically available.

David Booth, a retired physicist and a genealogical researcher, has engineered a DOS program which converts parish register transcripts in the form of ASCII text files into edited indexes by:

• identifying the elements present by parsing the transcripts

• allowing for polishing the results, and

• presenting the information as edited indexes.

The parsing sections of the program, which work on a line-by-line basis, deal with parish register records which conform to specified syntaxes.  There are a dozen parsing options for various styles of register.  The software can be used for existing data but it is preferable to impose editorial standards at the data entry stage.

Successful parsing of parish register transcripts depends on the commas, spaces, etc. used as delimiters for fields presented in a specified order.  The program reports any error messages in its log file.  Other errors, such as optional ‘place’ which have been parsed as ‘trades’ because of a syntax error, have to be detected by the user.  However the computerised parsing and indexing are so quick that it is easy to correct the transcript files and repeat the entire process.  The output from the parsing functions is lists of ‘names’, ‘places’ and ‘trades’ with the associated page numbers or dates.

The editing section of the program takes such lists, sorts them and makes them into indexes.  Thus for each surname it generates an indented paragraph with the Christian names in alphabetic order, each being followed by the relevant page numbers or dates.  This part of the program could be applied to any suitable lists, such as those produced by database programs, spreadsheets or word processors.

Dr Booth has recently added a ‘replace’ facility for combining variant spellings of ‘surnames’, ‘places’ and ‘trades’.  The program automatically generates cross-references to show which spellings have been replaced.  A file of 250 unwanted spellings was used to change more than 1,100 entries in his new edition of the Combe Parish Registers for 1646-1837.

The PRINDEX program has various other menu options, such as those for tabulating the annual numbers of baptisms, marriages and burials, for tabulating ages at death, and for separating lists of places into, for example, those within and those outwith Oxford.  The PRINDEX program can parse any size of data file but the sorting routine can only cope with 10,000 entries.  A simplified version, called PREDIT, which omits the parsing options, can sort 18,000 entries.

The PRINDEX and PREDIT programs, instructions for their use, test data, and sample results are available gratis to SI & Genealogical Group members from Dr David L Booth, Pound Cottage, West End, COMBE, WITNEY, Oxon. OX8 8NP.  Please send an s.a.e. and a IBM-formatted disk (3.5" or 5.25").

[Address valid at time of original publication]

Computers in genealogy, v.4 1993, p. 482-5.

Oxfordshire family historian, v.6, 1992, p. 193-4.

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