Surname Search

[simon4amiee]

Is there anyway in Access to run query similar to the Duplicates, but searches an almost match, for example SMITH, SMIATH would be returned, and also JONES, JONESS would be returned.

Its a data quality check on a Surname field where we can identify discrepancies better where the names almost match but not 100% and may have 1 digit only thats incorrect but again this could be at the begining, middle or end of the name.

Its a long shot I know!

 

[KenHigg]

Pretty sure there is no way to do this as there would be an endless number of combinations to account for...

 

[pr2-eugin]

Well if they sound the same then SoundEx - Fuzzy Match might be handy. If they do not sound the same it is pretty hard I think !

For example - SoundEx will recogonize Jones and Joness as they sound the same, but Smith and Smiath will not sound the same so it might not pick it up !

 

[Galaxiom]

Test the records against the search string using the Damerau-Levenshtein distance. It measures the number of added, omitted or reversed character pairs between two strings. Rank by the result to find the closest matches.

See post 10 in this thread.