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.