Adam,

Go to the search function on this group and type the name you are interested in. Replace any letter you anticipate could have variation with an asterisk. If you search H*rvit* you get all spelling variations that replace the asterisks. Replacing more letters with an asterisk will broaden your search but yield more results.
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I haven't tried it, but you may be able to search the discussions using wildcards for some letters to get a wider response.
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Barbara Sloan
Conway, SC

Peter Hoekstra has already replied correctly. One can only search JGFF database for the family names and towns names. This is a virtual meeting place.
Discussion groups postings are not included.

Best,

Alexander Sharon
JGFF editor

Thanks for the information. I probably wasn't clear enough in my question. What I am asking about i searches within the current and archived posts on this group discussion board. I do not believe that these posts are included in the Universal Search from the main JewishGen site. So this is a separate and apart database using a different search engine. So my question is whether there is a way to apply these search rules to the posts in this discussion board. This is an important question because it affects whether I need to include various spellings of the names in my posts or I can rely on the soundex. Thanks, Adam Cherson

Adam,

I have copied and pasted the explanation directly from Jewishgen as below. In this case they describe searching options for a town. The Surname search also has options for Phonetic and for DM Soundex.

Searching 'Hurwitz' in the Surname option DM Soundex will produce results for spelling variations including 'Horvits'.

https://www.jewishgen.org/jgff/jgffweb.asp

Search types:

For each search, you can choose one of four different types of matching, for Surnames and Town names:

• Is Exactly (Standard) — match on exact spelling only
• Starts With (Wildcard) — match based upon a prefix
• Sounds Like (D-M Soundex) — match based upon a name's sound
• Contains (Partial Text) — match based upon text matching anywhere within a name

Is Exactly:

Selecting the Is Exactly option will search for all instances of your surname or town based upon exact spelling only.  For Surnames, this option is not very useful, since surnames were rarely spelled consistently in historical records.  For Towns, you can also opt to use the Town Synonym database, if a specific country is chosen.

Starts With:

Selecting the Starts With option will let you search for all combinations of your surname or town based upon your input prefix.  For example, selecting the Starts With option for the name "Stein" will match all names that start with the letters "Stein", such as: "Stein", "Steinberg", "Steiner", "Steinman", etc.

Sounds Like:

Selecting the Sounds Like option will let you search for all similar-sounding names, according to the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system.  For example, "Rosenstein", "Rozenstine" and "Rojzensztejn" will all be searched if you request a Sounds Like search of "Rosensteen".

Contains:

Selecting the Contains option will let you search for all data records which contain that text anywhere within the surname or town field.  For example, selecting the Contains option for the name "Blatt" will match "Blatt", "Blattman", "Blattenberg", "Feinblatt", "Greenblatt", "Steinblatter", etc.

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To Anyone Who May Know:

I am wondering whether the search engine used to search JewishGen Group posts and archives is of the type that finds closely spelled names (I believe this is called something like Daitch-Molotov). For example, if I write the name Horvits capitalized in a post, will someone who is searching for 'Hurwitz' find my post?

Thanks,
Adam Cherson