Expanded use of Wild Cards in searches

+7 votes
155 views

 

Understanding that someday WikiTree will have Soundex or equivalent, I'm wondering if in the meanwhile, it would be feasible to expand the use of wild cards in the “Person Search” and “Match Search” functions. This would help greatly in searching for people with variations in spelling. While working on the World Ancestry Project, keyers have several wildcard options available to help in deciphering sometimes cryptic handwriting. The wildcards that WAP use are as follows:

?      Single Character      This will match a single character in the string. “??” will                  look for 2 characters, etc.

*       Multiple Characters      This will match one or more characters in the string. If the search string does not end with a $, a “*” at the end is implied.

$      End of Word       This indicates the location of the end of the word.

I believe these would work here, and though I'm not a programmer, should be easier than incorporating Soundex.  I know other schemes are possible, this is just a suggestion.

 

in Genealogy Help by Living Thompson G2G6 Mach 2 (24.1k points)
retagged by Keith Hathaway

Daniel:

Excellent topic and question!

Have you seen: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/12651/wild-card-in-surname-search-field

Thank you Keith, though I check G2G daily, I missed that one.  I believe that by expanding the use of wild cards, the overall accuracy and ease of use will improve.

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