Advanced Search Help

On this advanced search page you can specify more information about the person that you are searching for. 

Not all fields are required.  If you enter only a "Family Name" you will get matches for people with that name.  If you enter only a "Place" you will get results from that place, which may be a city, county, state, or country.

The more fields that you enter text into, the fewer results that will match your search request.

WorldVitalRecords.com provides three types of surname searching. The "Match Type" option lets you select what type of search you would like to do. The three options are "Exact", "Soundex", and "Double Metaphone."


"Exact" searches will return results that match the exact spellings that you entered into the Family Name box. If you type in the surname "Smith" you will only get results with the name Smith. The results will not include spelling variations or misspellings.

"Soundex" searches will return search results that match the Soundex variations for the name that you entered into the Family Name box. Soundex is a "phonetic algorithm" that identifies words that sound alike but are spelled differently such as "Smyth" and "Smith" or "Brown" and "Braun." Soundex was developed and patented in the early 1900's by Robert Russell and Margaret Odell.

"Double Metaphone" searches will return search results that match the Double Metaphone spellings for the name that you entered into the Family Name box. Double Metaphone was developed in 2000 by Lawrence Philips and is the second generation of the "Metaphone" phonetic algorithm. Double Metaphone is superior to Soundex because it understands the basic rules of spelling for English, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. "Double Metaphone" tends to return more accurate and slightly fewer name variation search results.


If you get zero results, try removing text from the Place, Year, and Keyword fields as the collections may not have that information.

 

 

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