Disambiguating geographical names in historical British censuses and travel writing

This paper presents two case studies. Firstly, a novel analysis of parish names in English census reports where comprehensive disambiguation required matching to a poly-hierarchic Administrative Unit Ontology (AUO). Secondly, identifying toponyms in an extensive collection of historical travel writing by following the traveller’s route. Constructed alongside the toponym matching, the AUO and ‘places’ gazetteer are rich data structures that integrate diverse historical sources.