What exactly is a soundex search and doesn the Ellis Island database have something similar?
There are several soundex systems and basically they involve the use of a list of names that are phonetically equivalent to the one you are interested in. A soundex search would return all names that exactly match the desired name as well as those that match any of the phonetically equivalents. Currently the Ellis Island search engine does not do a soundex search. However it does have the ability to generate a list of phonetic equivalents for you. According to Gary Mokotoff (co-developer of the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex code), this list is probably better than one based solely on soundex. However the Ellis Island search engine does not search on these equivalents for you automatically — instead it gives you the ability to select equivalents (up to two at a time) and search on them. In contrast, our alternate search engine does a true soundex search. You enter one name on the gray search form and it will find all names that are phonetically equivalent. It uses the Daitch-Mokotoff soundex
