The weirdness of phonetic matching

[Forfarian]

I've been looking in the Scotland's People index for someone whose surname is Don. No joy so I clicked on 'Phonetic Matching'.

The first result to come up is someone whose surname is Aimer. Not one single letter in common with Don or anything that sounds vaguely like it, except for a silent 'e' at the end of Donne or Dunne.

How on earth does the algorithm come up with Aimer as a phonetic match for Don

[AllanUK]

I've been looking in the Scotland's People index for someone whose surname is Don. No joy so I clicked on 'Phonetic Matching'.

The first result to come up is someone whose surname is Aimer. Not one single letter in common with Don or anything that sounds vaguely like it, except for a silent 'e' at the end of Donne or Dunne.

How on earth does the algorithm come up with Aimer as a phonetic match for Don

I have experienced the same when searching, I have given up using the 'Phonetic Matching' criteria.

[Zaphod99]

Remember someone once proposed the spelling ghoti for "fish", with the [gh] from "laugh", the 'o' from "women" and the [ti] from "nation".

Zaph

[coombs]

Sometimes the phonetic search is as useful as a pair of sunglasses on a bloke with one ear, as Del Boy said.

I have typed in "Obey"/"Obee" and get swamped with irrelevant results for "Bird".

[brigidmac]

Thanks for the warning and the laughs
Are  first letter only
Or wild card  better options

I've just been shown a boat with the Irish word for freedom
It's apparently pronounced something like" "see  Hu Shay " but spelt Saiorse
Only one vowel missing to have the full set

[AllanUK]

Thanks for the warning and the laughs
Are  first letter only
Or wild card  better options

I've just been shown a boat with the Irish word for freedom
It's apparently pronounced something like" she sho hay" but spelt Saiorse
Only one vowel missing!

I try to use wild cards where ever possible along with any other known info, e.g. year of birth, county of birth

[Rosinish]

I've been looking in the Scotland's People index for someone whose surname is Don. No joy so I clicked on 'Phonetic Matching'.

The first result to come up is someone whose surname is Aimer. Not one single letter in common with Don or anything that sounds vaguely like it, except for a silent 'e' at the end of Donne or Dunne.

How on earth does the algorithm come up with Aimer as a phonetic match for Don

Heaven knows...sounds like they're in cahoots with the find-a-will crew 

I'm surprised you didn't email SP 

Next time you visit Forfarian, make sure to point it out & how frustratingly useless it is 

Annie

[Forfarian]

I'm surprised you didn't email SP 

Because I am quite sure they didn't write the software - they probably bought in a phonetic/soundalike package from a developer.

I didn't use the phonetic search until they discontinued the 'name variants' option.

[brigidmac]

I'm not sure what the balance is between putting too much information and too little .

Coming back to using SP after a long break and getting 0 results or 100s

Is it better to put a wide age range or a narrow one

If I'm wrong about location or a parish has a different name in the past
 results could be hidden .

Lots of pitfalls !

I'm looking for Agnes MCFARLANE birth  and there are a lot of spelling possibilities  I my have  wrong parents for her on my tree .