Thursday, April 7, 2011

Is that u an n or is that n a u?

When searching databases, keep in mind that vowels are sometimes read as consonants, creating names that defy Soundex searches and, depending upon the letters in the name, wildcard searches as well.

Traut can easily become Trant--and that's just for starters.

2 comments:

  1. I've also seen vowels get dropped out such that "Kinney" becomes "Knney" or "Kinny" or even "Knny"

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  2. When handwritten, the name WARNOCK is impossible for transcribers to get correctly. Common transcriptions are Wammock, Womack, or Footnote.com's "Wasnack."

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