It Was Wild In Nebraska In 1885---That's Why We Search With Wildcards

We've mentioned using wildcards at FamilySearch, but the release of the 1885 Nebraska State Census reminded me of their importance.

A search for ann* goldenstein (exact unchecked) did not provide any hits as shown below:

But a search for ann g*ld*st*n did:

 Readers familiar with Soundex will know that Goldenstein and Goldensten are Soundex equivalent. They will also remember (hopefully) from earlier blog posts that unexact searches are FamilySearch do not necessarily pull all hits that are Soundex equivalent.

The desired entry was located in Dawson County, Nebraska's Willow Island precinct.

The young homesteaders had been married around four years at the time of this enumeration and their household had been joined by two children, including Tjode (listed as Tyoda above), the author's great-grandmother. 

Renhert is actually Bernard--named for Annie's father, Bernard Dirks who stayed behind in Adams County, Illinois, where the couple had been married in 1881. 

The more I search on FamilySearch, the more I use wildcards as they are more effective. At least most of the time. I'll have to do a little more searching, Frank's uncle and several cousins should also be in Dawson County in 1885.

Does Unexact at FamilySearch Include Soundex?

Many genealogists leave "exact" boxes unchecked when performing searches because more is better. Many genealogists also have unspoken assumptions about what searches do when "exact" boxes are checked. Those assumptions can get one in trouble.

Apparently an "unexact" search at FamilySearch does not include Soundex variants--at least not always.

The last names of Goldenstein and Goldenstien are Soundex equivalent (G435-check it out here). There's two reasons for this:

• the only differences in the two spellings involve vowels and Soundex ignores vowel sounds
• the differences in the names are after the third consonant sound (not counting the initial letter) and Soundex does not consider any consonant sound after the third non-initial letter. Even if consonants this "far down" in the name are switched, the Soundex code does not change. 

Consequently one would expect  a search for "Voke Goldenstein" with exact unchecked at FamilySearch in their 1880 index to find an entry for Voke Goldenstien. After all, those last names are Soundex equivalent and an "unexact" search "should" catch Soundex equivalents at FamilySearch.

Nope..not quite.

It does not as shown below. The search for Voke Goldenstein (with last name unexact) finds no results:

A search for "Voke Goldenstien" does find the entry.

The fact that the first name is checked as exact does not matter.

It is pretty clear that FamilySearch does not view the last names of Goldenstein and Goldenstien as "similar" enough to return the same results (with "unexact" unchecked) for these searches.

The search for William (checked) and Goldenstein (unchecked) returns 29 hits as shown below:

The search for William (checked) and Goldenstien (unchecked) returns 29 hits as shown below:

Clearly FamilySearch does not consider these names "close enough" to bring all of them up when an "unexact" search is the desired search option.

One would not expect the transposition of two vowels towards the end of a name of this length to matter, especially when the vowels in question are "i" and "e."

It's always advised to experiment with any "unexact" search. If you didn't code it, you don't know how it searches.