Soundex Calculator

The Soundex system is the best-known method of indexing names, based not on spelling but on pronunciation. It has been used notably in the U.S.A for indexing census, immigration and naturalisation records. Soundex was developed for English names, and other schemes have been devised for names in other languages. The Soundex scheme works only for names comprising exclusively ASCII characters: it will not work for names which contain accented characters or for different alphabets such as cyrillic or greek.

Of several different implementations of the Soundex system, the commonest are Simplified Soundex, and American Soundex (or Miracode). Almost all names yield the same code in both cases, but there a few differences: the name Ashcroft, for instance, becomes A226 in Simplified Soundex, and A261 in American Soundex.

To access the Soundex Calculator, from the Tools menu, click Soundex Calculator.

In the 'Soundex Calculator' dialog, you can enter a single name to see the Soundex code, or click List All Names to see a complete listing of Soundex codes for all names in the gedcom database. To sort the list, by name or by Soundex code, click the corresponding column header. Both Simplified and American Soundex codes are shown, though differences between them will be rare.