Beginning with the 1880 census, the censuses are indexed by the
Soundex system. The Soundex is a coded surname (last name) index
based on the way a surname sounds rather than the way it is
spelled. Surnames that sound the same, but are spelled
differently, like SMITH and SMYTH, have the same code and are
filed together. The Soundex Coding system was developed so that
you can find a surname even though it may have been recorded
under various spellings. To search for a particular surname, you
must first work out its code. This program help you do that:
just enter the surname, and out comes the code.