Hello,
This is a bit hard to explain so I will err on the side of over explaining than under explaining - sorry for the long post. So here is my situation:
I am a medieval historian and I have translated a scroll of tax records. On this scroll there are about 300 names; thus, in column "B" I have a list of 300 names - let's call these names the "scroll list". I need to find out as much as I can about each person; so, I have collected scrolls that other scholars have translated or transcribed. Each of these scrolls may have from 50 - 5,000 names. I have put the names of the people found within a given scroll in a new column: e.g. a scroll that lists to whom the king wrote letters would be column "C", a scroll that lists who the king borrowed money from would be column "D", a scroll that says how much money each baron had would be column "E," etc. So lets say that these other names are listed, by scroll, in columns C-Z. What I would like to do is find out how often each of the names in my "scroll list" show up in any of the other lists in columns C-Z. I would also like to know in which scroll the name shows up. So, for example: on the main "scroll list," the first person's name is Aaron de Blund - I would like to know 1.how many times his name shows up in the other scrolls, and 2. which scrolls his name shows up in (his name will likely be on at least one of the scrolls several times, but on most scrolls his name will only show up once, if at all). So lets say that Aaron de Blund shows up in column "D's" scroll once, in column "J's" scroll three times, and in column "Z's" scroll twice. I would like to place an empty column next to my "scroll list" column; this column would then be populated with the number of times his name shows up within all of the names in all of the columns; further, it (or, perhaps another new column) would also be populated with the location of each place Aaron's name was found... e.g. D7, J100, J125, J345, Z12, Z87.
In addition to this, there are further complications. These documents are very old - from 1242; thus, the scrolls were written in an era where there was no standard spelling. Even worse, each name is often abbreviated differently by different scribes. Worse still, the names are often not entirely legible. Yet worse still, these documents can be written in Anglo-Norman, Old French, but most often in medieval Latin. This causes two types of problems with each name: First, e.g., I may have a name that could be either"Grimsby" or "Krimsby"... in this case the first letter is not clear and could easily show up as either name in any of the scrolls; second, there are many different ways to spell each name - the names are almost always abbreviated. So for example, for Aaron de Blund, one scribe may have written "Arn' d Blund," another scribe may have written "Aaron de Blnd'," yet another scribe may have written "Aron de Bl'," and so on. So let's say that in my "scroll list" Aaron shows up as "Arn' de Blund"... I know this means Aaron de Blund so I translated his name thusly. However, in the other columns (i.e. in other scrolls, translated by other scholars) the name may be "Arn' de Blund" - this is because, before about 1900, every transcription of the scrolls was an exact duplicate of what was written in the original scroll, thus there are often many different spellings. It is a bit like the way teenagers text: "lol C U @ r8chels 2nite!" This would make almost no sense to a person not used to such abbreviations; the same is true with these names: Since the scribes wrote in abbreviations that could vary, and since some scholars have kept these abbreviations while other scholars have translated the full name, there is rarely a perfect match.
In sum:
How can I set up my Excel spreadsheet so that it checks each name in my original "scroll list," and finds the number of times the name (or something similar to the name) can be found in the in the other scrolls' columns? Also, how could I create a column, (or columns) that will list where these names are found in the other scrolls? I am sure that you can see that checking each of the three hundred names on my "scroll list" against the thousands of names on twenty or thirty other scrolls by hand, one at a time, would take a long time... a very, very, long time. Thus, your help with this is all but essential for my research, and I cannot thank you enough for any guidance you can give me.
I know this is a very complex question, and I can only hope that it makes sense; I am of course happy to provide more detail if needed.
All the best,
-Ethan Margolis
emargol@ncsu.edu
p.s. I have Excel 2011 running on a MacBook Pro.