A method of precessing data that has been charactyerised using multiple taxonomies in order to combine and reconcile the data comprises: defining a set of allowable identifier items, were each identitier item is a single string or primitibe type or other code, where each identifier item indicates which child node in the taxonomy a datum is identifiable with given the parent node in the taxonomy that the datum is identifiable with where that identifier item applies, where an identifier consists of the set of identifier items for which valid identification information exists for that datum, and where each datum of the source data comprises both an identifier and the datum information, wherein at least some of the source data has incomplete identifiers with one or more identifier items not being included; defining a qualification value for each identifier, the qualification value being equal to the number of identifier items that contain valid information, and anidentifier having a complete set of identifier items being categorised as fully qualified; merging the multiple taxonomies for the source data by making each child node in a combined taxonomy have a one higher qualification value than the parent node from which it stems; and determining a probability for a specific fully qualified identification of a datum having incomplete identifiers as given by a suitable statistical or other logical representation of the combined effect of the probability of each descendant child node leading down the taxonomy from the respective incomplete identity node in the taxonomy to the specific fully-qualified node in the taxonomy, when the taxonomies are merged using the defined qualification value ordering; such that all source data is associated probabilistically with fully qualified nodes of the combined taxonomy.
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