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| Free soundex generator. Pay nothing
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| Soundex Generator | |||||
| Family Tree Lab | Starter Kit | Free Databases | Internet Search | Free Forms | Soundex |
| Soundex turns your name into its corresponding
phonetic code. Use this code to research your name and many spelling variations of it in passenger manifests and US census records. |
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| Soundex Explained The Soundex code represents a word, such as a person's name, based on the way the word sounds rather than the way it is spelled. Words that are spelled differently but sound the same such as Stewart and Stuart have the same Soundex code. This was sometime called a Miracode when a computer generated the code. The National Archives uses the Soundex system to index most of the census records from 1880 to 1930 and some of the passenger arrivals records. When these records were originally written many of the Americans were illiterate and did not know how to write their own last name. They would pronounce their name and the person writing the record would spell it according to how it sounded and often incorrectly. Thus, the spelling of names varies in early records but these variations are phonetically identical and they have identical Soundex codes. Soundex Coding Rules 1. Every Soundex code consists of a letter followed by three digits, such as D226. 2. The letter is always the first letter of the word being coded. 3. After the first letter disregard the letters A, E, H, I, O, U, Y and W. 4. Digits represent the remaining consonants according to the chart below. 5. If the resulting code is less than four characters zeros are add at the end. 6. Excess letters are ignored if they would produce a code longer that four characters.
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Soundex Code
Generator 1. Adjacent Letters. Side by side letters with the same Soundex letter code number are treated as one letter. Jackson is coded: J250. (J, plus 2 for C, K is ignored, S is ignored, 5 for N, 0 added). 2. H or W Letters Separator. Letters separated by an h or w and with the same Soundex letter code are treated as one letter. Ashcraft is coded: A261. (A, plus 2 for S, C is ignored, 6 for R, 1 for F). 3. Vowel Letter Separator. Letters separated by a vowel (a, e, i, o, u, y) are both coded. 4. Name Prefix. Name prefixes such as Con, De, Di, La, Le or Van are not coded. Prefixes Mc and Mac are included in the code. Note: Coders sometimes missed this rule and a surname could be coded with or without the prefix. A through search should include the code from both forms.
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| Copyright © 2009 by: Jerry C. DeKeyser, All Rights Reserved | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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