Phonetic Name Matching

New Features on the One-Step website

Steve Morse, together with Alexander Beider, has developed
a method of phonetic name matching that has advantages over
soundex name matching. Soundex matching considers the way
the name is spelled whereas phonetic matching considers the
way the name is pronounced. The pronunciation is language
specific, and a determination of the language is made from
the spelling of the name. As a consequence, a soundex
search will result an a large number of false hits that the
researcher needs to examine whereas a phonetic search will
give relatively few false hits.

The phonetic name matching has been or is about to be
included on several existing One-Step search forms. These
include the gold form for searching for passengers in the
Ellis Island database (coming soon) as well as the One-Step
Dachau Concentration Camp search form. In addition, the
two new search forms described below (Searching Naturalization
Records and Searching Reference Books) also include
phonetic name matching.