Wildcards on familysearch.org

[Gallicrow]

After using the site just about every day for ten months, today I discovered for the first time that you can use wildcards. The number of times I've searched through hundreds of records trying to find a likely looking surname that might be a mis-spelling of the name I've interested in. If only I'd known I could have entered "B*" or whatever. Oh well, we live and learn!

[MonicaL]

We do indeed! Took me years too to figure that out 

Just one thing, FS is really good at including variants overall, but it does miss some and this is where also trying with wild cards can be really helpful I found.

Monica

[Gallicrow]

I think Family Search is the best for matching name variants of the sites I use (all the free ones + ancestry at the moment whilst I can access it via my local library's account).

One thing it didn't help me with was a simple transposition of letters. I was looking for my 2xgreat grandmother, Eliza Searle, in the 1901 census for six months on and off. Eventually I found her using brute force with her surname recorded as "Sealre":
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSWG-997
Searle / Sealre - such an easy mistake to make!