diff --git a/lib/datura/data_manager.rb b/lib/datura/data_manager.rb
index 24f4898e9..336a17bf6 100644
--- a/lib/datura/data_manager.rb
+++ b/lib/datura/data_manager.rb
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ def self.format_to_class
       "csv" => FileCsv,
       "ead" => FileEad,
       "html" => FileHtml,
+      "personography" => FilePersonography,
       "tei" => FileTei,
       "vra" => FileVra,
       "webs" => FileWebs,
diff --git a/lib/datura/file_types/file_personography.rb b/lib/datura/file_types/file_personography.rb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b56ba2f9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/datura/file_types/file_personography.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+require_relative "../helpers.rb"
+require_relative "../file_type.rb"
+require_relative "../solr_poster.rb"
+require_relative "file_tei.rb"
+require "rest-client"
+require "json"
+
+# FilePersonography handles TEI personography files — XML files containing
+# a <listPerson> element with individual <person> children, each identified
+# by a unique xml:id attribute.
+#
+# Unlike standard TEI processing (one ES document per file), this class
+# produces one ES JSON document per <person> element, with each output file
+# named by the person's xml:id value (e.g., hickok.j.json).
+#
+# HTML output uses the standard tei_to_html XSLT, which via
+# personography_encyclopedia.xsl writes:
+#   - one combined HTML file with all persons as divs (served at /item/{filename})
+#   - individual HTML files per person via xsl:result-document (served at /item/{xml:id})
+#
+# Solr output uses the standard tei_to_solr XSLT, which via
+# tei_to_solr/lib/personography.xsl produces per-person Solr docs.
+#
+# Source files should be placed in source/personography/ within the collection.
+class FilePersonography < FileTei
+
+  # Maps each <person> element to TeiToEsPersonography for ES transformation.
+  # The parent /TEI document is intentionally excluded — one ES doc is produced
+  # per person, not one for the entire file.
+  def subdoc_xpaths
+    { "//listPerson/person" => TeiToEsPersonography }
+  end
+
+  # Overrides FileType#transform_es to write one JSON file per person
+  # (named by the person's xml:id) instead of a single file for the whole document.
+  # Returns an array of JSON hashes so that post_es can iterate and POST them
+  # to Elasticsearch without modification.
+  def transform_es
+    es_req = []
+    begin
+      file_xml = parse_markup_lang_file
+
+      # Verify at least one person element exists before continuing
+      results = file_xml.xpath(*subdoc_xpaths.keys)
+      if results.length == 0
+        raise "No persons found in #{self.filename}; verify //listPerson/person matches the XML structure"
+      end
+
+      file_xml.xpath("//listPerson/person").each do |person_node|
+        transformer = TeiToEsPersonography.new(person_node, @options, file_xml, self.filename(false))
+        person_json = transformer.json
+        es_req << person_json
+
+        # Write one JSON file per person using the person's identifier as the filename.
+        # Produces e.g. output/es/hickok.j.json rather than output/es/wfc.person.json.
+        if @options["output"]
+          person_id = person_json["identifier"]
+          if person_id.nil? || person_id.empty?
+            puts "WARNING: person in #{self.filename} has no identifier; skipping ES file output"
+            next
+          end
+          filepath = File.join(@out_es, "#{person_id}.json")
+          File.open(filepath, "w") { |f| f.write(JSON.pretty_generate(person_json)) }
+        end
+      end
+
+      return es_req
+    rescue => e
+      puts "Error transforming #{self.filename}: #{e}"
+      puts e.backtrace
+      raise e
+    end
+  end
+
+  def transform_iiif
+    raise "Personography to IIIF is not implemented"
+  end
+
+end
diff --git a/lib/datura/to_es/tei_to_es/tei_to_es_personography.rb b/lib/datura/to_es/tei_to_es/tei_to_es_personography.rb
index 4d3d43de2..0323fd588 100644
--- a/lib/datura/to_es/tei_to_es/tei_to_es_personography.rb
+++ b/lib/datura/to_es/tei_to_es/tei_to_es_personography.rb
@@ -1,33 +1,57 @@
+# TeiToEsPersonography transforms a single <person> element from a TEI
+# personography file into an Elasticsearch JSON document.
+#
+# Each <person> element becomes one ES document, identified by the person's
+# xml:id attribute value (e.g., "hickok.j"). The parent TEI document is passed
+# as @parent_xml so that header-level fields (creator, contributor, etc.) can
+# still be extracted from the full file.
+
 class TeiToEsPersonography < TeiToEs
 
-  def override_xpaths
-    {
+  # Merges person-level xpaths on top of the standard TeiToEs xpaths, then
+  # merges override_xpaths on top so collection teams can still customize using
+  # the familiar hook pattern (e.g., in scripts/overrides/tei_to_es_personography.rb).
+  # Paths here are relative to the <person> element (@xml), not the document root.
+  # Header-level fields (creator, contributor, rights, etc.) are unchanged and
+  # are queried against @parent_xml in the field methods below.
+  def xpaths_list
+    super.merge({
       "titles" => {
         "main" => "persName[@type='display']",
-        "alt" => "persName"
+        "alt"  => "persName"
       },
-      "text" => "note"
-    }
+      "text"       => "note",
+      "birth_year" => "birth/@when",
+      "death_year" => "death/@when"
+    }).merge(override_xpaths)
+  end
+
+  # No-op by default; override in a collection script to add or replace xpaths.
+  def override_xpaths
+    {}
+  end
+
+  # Returns the person's xml:id value as the document identifier.
+  # After namespace removal by Nokogiri, xml:id is accessible as the "id" attribute.
+  def get_id
+    @xml["id"]
   end
 
   def category
     "Life"
   end
 
-  def creator
-    creators = get_list(@xpaths["creators"], false, @parent_xml)
-    if creators
-      creators.map { |c| { "name" => c } }
-    end
+  # Hardcoded subcategory for all personography entries.
+  def subcategory
+    "Personography"
   end
 
-  def creators
-    get_text(@xpaths["creators"], false, @parent_xml)
+  def creator
+    []
   end
 
-  def get_id
-    person = @xml["id"]
-    "#{@filename}_#{person}"
+  def creators
+    nil
   end
 
   def person
@@ -38,8 +62,39 @@ def person
     }]
   end
 
-  def subcategory
-    "Personography"
+  # Uses birth/@when as the person's primary date (standardized to start of year).
+  def date
+    year = get_text(@xpaths["birth_year"])
+    Datura::Helpers.date_standardize(year, true) if year
+  end
+
+  # Same as date — birth year as the not-before bound.
+  def date_not_before
+    year = get_text(@xpaths["birth_year"])
+    Datura::Helpers.date_standardize(year, true) if year
+  end
+
+  # Uses death/@when as the not-after date (standardized to end of year).
+  def date_not_after
+    year = get_text(@xpaths["death_year"])
+    Datura::Helpers.date_standardize(year, false) if year
+  end
+
+  # Raw birth year string for display (e.g., "1850").
+  def date_display
+    get_text(@xpaths["birth_year"])
+  end
+
+  # Points to the source personography XML file (the whole file, not per-person),
+  # since all persons share one source document.
+  def uri_data
+    File.join(
+      @options["data_base"],
+      "data",
+      @options["collection"],
+      "source/personography",
+      "#{@filename}.xml"
+    )
   end
 
 end
diff --git a/lib/xslt/tei_to_html/lib/personography_encyclopedia.xsl b/lib/xslt/tei_to_html/lib/personography_encyclopedia.xsl
index d15066563..337a7bd01 100644
--- a/lib/xslt/tei_to_html/lib/personography_encyclopedia.xsl
+++ b/lib/xslt/tei_to_html/lib/personography_encyclopedia.xsl
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
     <!-- this is the same as the above but written to a specific file -->
     <xsl:for-each select="//person">
       <!-- the filename will start relative to the html-generated (output) directory of a specific collection -->
-      <xsl:variable name="filename" select="concat('collections/', $collection, '/output/', $environment, '/html/', @xml:id, '.html')"/>
+      <xsl:variable name="filename" select="concat('output/', $environment, '/html/', @xml:id, '.html')"/>
       <xsl:result-document href="{$filename}">
         <xsl:call-template name="person_info"/>
       </xsl:result-document>