February 2002 Genealogy Forum News

Soundex

SOUNDEX- What is it and how do you use it?

First of all, some of you may be asking yourself, What is a Soundex? It is a way to index Surnames, also states, and other things. It indexes words by code. You will find this used in the 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 Census records. They do not have index books to look for a head of household like the earlier census records do. These Soundex Census records are on Microfilm. I have seen the soundex used to index Death Records at public libraries and also Military records, such as the Rev. War, Civil War, etc. of those who fought and those who received Pension records. Passenger and ship lists. So it is a good tool to learn. Whatever record you are looking at, if it uses the soundex format, you will be familiar with it and know how to use it.

What the Soundex does: It takes a surname for example, and codes it, keeping the first letter in the name, and coding three letters of the surname into numbers. Right now I would like you all to get out a pen and paper and write down one surname. Let me know when you have done this.

Now write down under that surname the first letter of the surname. The following letters after the first letter in the surname are to be discarded. Just cross them out in your surname: A, E, I, O, U, W, Y and H. Cross out any letters that are repeated, such the "L"s in KELLY. Cross out the second letter of any name with the very first two letters that either sound alike or are the same. Example: Lloyd. As I mentioned we always keep the first letter, for that is the beginning of the code, the second l is crossed out.

You may have a name such as Van Vander. The prefix (Van) may or may not be listed in the soundex, so you need to code both and look for both, with the prefix and without the prefix. One other thing -- if you run out of letters to code then just add zeros. But remember the code consists of 1 letter and 3 numbers. For example, one of my surnames is LANE. The code for that is L500.

Now here is the code for you to soundex your name. You already have written down the first letter of the surname, just write down the rest of the code next to it. Let me know what the surname was, and what the code is for that name when you are finished.

CODE:

1- B, P, F, V
2- C, S, K, G, J, Q, X, Z
3- D, T
4- L
5- M, N
6- R

Many genealogy programs have a soundex code program with it. Some websites have it also. But it is a good idea for you to learn yourself how to code a name, for you never know where you will be or when you need it. :) You might want to soundex the surnames you are researching and keep them in a file. That way all you have to do is grab that file. :)

Once you have soundexed your name, then you are ready to do research, whether it is for Census records, Military records, etc. One thing you need to keep in mind -- many surnames may use the same code as yours. For example, POWELL and PAUL are both P400. When looking at the soundex, under your code, it is alphabetized by the first name after the soundex code.

Whether it be Census records, military records, etc, you will find whatever is soundexed will be on Soundex cards on Microfilm. Write down all the information on those cards. Now I won't go into detail this time on what you will find on these cards for that is another talk all in itself.

In fact, here are two handy references from our Forum Library:

Keyword: ROOTS> Library > Software and Tools > Genealogy Tips and Resources > How to read Soundex Cards

Keyword: ROOTS > Library > Logs, Newsletters & More > Genealogy Lectures > Tues Beg./ Soundex Coding GF

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