/ 
Genealogy-Occupation-0.01
/ Genealogy::Occupation

NAME

Genealogy::Occupation - Normalise and translate genealogical occupation strings

VERSION

Version 0.01

SYNOPSIS

use Genealogy::Occupation;

my $normaliser = Genealogy::Occupation->new();

my @occupations = $normaliser->normalise(
    occupation => 'Ag Lab',
    sex        => 'M',
);
# Returns ('Agricultural Labourer')

# Or pass an arrayref
my @more = $normaliser->normalise(
    occupation => ['Ag Lab', 'Ag Lab', 'Retired'],
    sex        => 'M',
);
# Returns ('Agricultural Labourer') - deduplicated and filtered

DESCRIPTION

Normalises occupation strings found in genealogical records, handling common abbreviations, malformed entries, locale-specific spellings and translations into French and German.

Designed to handle poor-quality data from genealogy software imports where occupation strings may be abbreviated, inconsistent or use archaic terminology.

Processing steps applied in order:

1. Filter out non-occupations (Scholar, Retired, Domestic Duties etc)
2. Normalise abbreviations and malformed entries to canonical forms
3. Deduplicate consecutive identical or equivalent entries (compared on pre-translation normalised forms)
4. Apply locale-specific spellings via Lingua::EN::ABC
5. Translate to French or German if system locale requires it

METHODS

new

Purpose

Constructs a new normaliser object.

API Specification

Input

{
    warn_on_error => {
        type     => 'boolean',
        optional => 1,
        default  => 0,
    },
}

Output

{ type => 'object', isa => 'Genealogy::Occupation' }

Arguments

  • warn_on_error - If true, unknown occupations that cannot be translated will emit a warning via carp rather than silently falling back to English. Optional, defaults to 0.

Returns

A blessed Genealogy::Occupation object.

Side Effects

None.

Notes

The system locale is detected once at construction time and cached for the lifetime of the object.

Example

my $normaliser = Genealogy::Occupation->new({
    warn_on_error => 1,
});

normalise

Purpose

Normalises one or more occupation strings, applying filtering, deduplication, abbreviation expansion, locale spelling and translation in order.

API Specification

Input

{
    occupation => {
        type => ['string', 'arrayref'],
    },
    sex => {
        type     => 'string',
        optional => 1,
        memberof => ['M', 'F'],
    },
}

Output

{
    type         => 'arrayref',
    element_type => 'string',
}

Arguments

  • occupation - A single occupation string or an arrayref of occupation strings. Required.

  • sex - The sex of the person, 'M' or 'F'. Optional but required for correct gendered translations in French and German. Defaults to 'M' if not provided when a gendered translation is needed.

Returns

An arrayref of normalised occupation strings. May be empty if all occupations were filtered out.

Side Effects

If warn_on_error was set at construction and an occupation cannot be translated, emits a warning via carp.

Notes

Deduplication operates across the full list of occupations passed in. Processing a single occupation at a time will not deduplicate across multiple calls.

Example

my $result = $normaliser->normalise(
    occupation => ['Ag Lab', 'Ag Lab', 'Retired'],
    sex        => 'M',
);
# Returns ['Agricultural Labourer']

my $result = $normaliser->normalise(
    occupation => 'Platelayer Railway',
);
# Returns ['Railway Platelayer']

AUTHOR

Nigel Horne <njh@bandsman.co.uk>

BUGS

Please report bugs via the GitHub issue tracker: https://github.com/nigelhorne/Genealogy-Occupation/issues

TODO

  • Expand French and German translation tables

  • Add support for additional languages

  • Add normalise_place() equivalent for occupation place strings

SEE ALSO

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2026 Nigel Horne.

Usage is subject to GPL2 licence terms. If you use it, please let me know.