What's in a name (Part III of IV)?

SOUNDEX is a phonetic name indexing system. When you calculate the soundex code for a name, you use the first letter of the name, then assign three digits to represent what the name sounds like. The purpose of the soundex code is to help you find names that are spelled differently, but sound similar.

For example, the Carterette family name is spelled several different ways in the US Census records. You can find Cartrett, Cartret, Carterette, and Cotrell. In addition, the Civil War Soldier records add another variation: Catrett. When changed to soundex codes, all but Cotrell and Catrett have the same soundex of C636. Cotrell is very close, C634. Only Catrett, with a soundex of C363, is significantly different.

Using the soundex code to search genealogical databases can help by displaying forms of names that may have been misspelled or changed, but still sound like the original surname. Of course, you may also have to review significantly more data, but in genealogy, more tends to be better than less.

Of course, the soundex system is no good when someone decides to go to the courthouse and change their name to something that strikes their fancy. For example, there is a woman in California who decided to change her name to GoVeg.Com. Assuming that good records are not kept, one day an ancestor of hers will be researching the GoVeg.Com family, which will suddenly end in the early 2000's. It will simply disappear.

In the final article on names, we'll briefly discuss poor record keeping and deceit as problems for tracking your family name.