> Is it possible to create a list of surnames that would all have the > same soundex. I'm trying to cover various spelling of Searle or > Searles and thought that this may help! > > Mark soundex is aging technology there are newer and better algorithms http://www.google.dk/search?hl=da&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=soundex+algorithm&spell=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex The Celko Improved Soundex algorithm was introduced by Joe Celko in his book "SQL For Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming." As a response to deficiencies in the Soundex algorithm, Lawrence Philips developed the Metaphone algorithm for the same purpose. Philips later developed an improvement to Metaphone, which he called Double-Metaphone. Double-Metaphone includes a much larger encoding rule set than its predecessor, handles a subset of non-Latin characters, and returns a primary and a secondary encoding to account for different pronunciations of a single word in English. Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex (D-M Soundex) was developed by genealogist Gary Mokotoff and later improved by genealogist Randy Daitch because of problems they encountered while trying to apply the Russell Soundex to Jews with Germanic or Slavic surnames (such as Moskowitz vs. Moskovitz or Levine vs. Lewin). D-M Soundex is sometimes referred to as "Jewish Soundex" or "Eastern European Soundex" (ref:Avayotnu.com), although the authors discourage the use of these nicknames. The D-M Soundex algorithm can return as many as 32 individual phonetic encodings for a single name. Results of D-M Soundex are returned in an all-numeric format between 100000 and 999999. This algorithm is much more complex than Russell Soundex. Hugh W -- new computer = new blog http://mac-on-intel.blogspot.com/ daily blogs with new photos http://snaps2006.blogspot.com/ http://slim2005.blogspot.com/ family history http://hughw36.blogspot.com/ Hugh Watkins <[email protected]>