Genealogy: Cracking the Soundex Code There are some nuances to
Soundex coding that affect names that may be on your lists. Men
and women in religious orders were usually coded as if Sister,
Brother, or Mother were their surnames. Indian and Hawaiian
names may be coded as if they had a surname. Running Bear may be
coded as B600 and then alphabetically as if his first name were
“Running.” For more information about special situations,
consult Kathleen Hinckley's Your Guide to the Federal Census and
Tony Burroughs article “The Original Soundex Instructions,”
published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Names
that sound the same, but begin with different letters such as
Courll and Kurl, or Fillip and Phillip, can give researchers
problems because they will be coded differently. In cases like
these you may need to use both codes to be successful. Daitch-
Mokotoff Soundex System is a modification of the Soundex System
used to accommodate Eastern European names in some indexes, but
not those for the cens