Explanation and Format of Results

The search form above will return the soundex, metaphone and german soundex codes even if there are no exact matches in the index. Matches for surname queries are displayed in groups of exact, metaphone, soundex, german soundex, and experimental, and all groups except for experimental are sorted alphabetically by surname; the experimental group is sorted by given name. Displayed results for given name queries are (for now) in exact, metaphone and soundex groups, and these are also sorted by surname.

If entry data has been entered for a person, a radio button will be available for you to click on, which will display the entry information when submitted. If there is no radio button, e-mail me at obstinatesnooper (at) gmail (dot) com, so that I can look up the information manually in the journal and e-mail it back to you, or copy the journal page and send it by snail mail.

When the priests recorded the baptisms, they followed the same format for each entry: Child name, son / daughter of father and mother[, his wife (optional)] [, of location (optional)], born date; baptized date. Rev. name officiated. Sponsors: first and second. By hooking into a database, for example, instead of having to request through e-mail that I type out José, Francis from page 048, you can automatically get something like the following:

where "Entry" is the entry number as assigned by the pastor who wrote recorded the information, and the original page and year is as noted by Mr. Barr.

Return to the top

About the database and query scripts

The database searches by soundex, metaphone, german soundex and experimental values. in addition to a regular LIKE surname query. (If your ancestor is filed under "McGrath" and you search for "Grath", you will get results. Likewise, if your ancestor is stored as "Phettiplace" and you search for "Place", you will get results. However, it does not work in reverse: if "Grath" is in the index but not "McGrath", and you search for "McGrath", you will get no results.) Both the metaphone and soundex functions are included in the PHP programming language. I used the metaphone as included; however, I wrote my own soundex function, because the one included with php ignores the H and W rule1, 2 used extensively by genealogists and family historians. Many of the soundex descriptions I came across in my search for the rules also neglect this rule3:

If "H" or "W" separate two consonants that have the same soundex code, the consonant to the right of the vowel is not coded. Example: Ashcraft is coded A-261. It is not coded A-226.

So, if I were to query "Ashcraft" with the php included soundex function, I would get A226. If you were to run it with the query I wrote, you'd get A-261.

In May of 2009, I found a php function, written by Nicolas Zimmer <nicolas dot zimmer at einfachmarke.de>, for german soundex returns, which I added to the site. (code.)

I am still working on the script that will allow you to search, for example, for "Ioset" 4 and get "Jose" 5 in your search results. If you think that's a bit of a stretch, know that there's a good possibility that someone made a connection with those two names. I'm also working on how to get it to recognize "Graff" 6 as "Grath" 7, and other associated alternate spellings for other surnames.

Return to the top