What is faulty with name search algorithm?

Question

I thought I was dreaming, by repeatedly not finding specific people that I know I have searched by name before.

On this ancestor, I enter Mary Vail and also mary vail. But in both cases, it turns up every sound alike profile EXCEPT the exact Mary Vail-181.

So...why? It seems like a massive flaw in the search algorithm.

Comments

It returns 100 results (out of 1676 in this case).

You can restrict the dates, or restrict it to exact spelling only.

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Above the search results list, there's an indication of the total number of hits and a statement that only 100 results are displayed. Whenever you see that there were more than 100 results, you need to use the sort function or the filter function (or both) to make sure you are seeing the desired results.

Answer 1

Below the list of 100 names you can turn off the sound-alike names by choosing NO for matches with surname variants. Then you get 85 Mary Vail, Vail-181 amongst them.

If you start the search from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:SearchPerson (available as Search in the Find dropdown) it is easier to see the option for matches with surname variants and turn it off.