SPELLING

A common genealogy task is to search databases online.  If you are searching census and opt for Soundex, you will get a lot of hits with a bunch of Barkleys, etc.  An optional approach is to search by spelling.  I arrived at the percentages by searching all databases in Ancestry.com to come up with the number of hits, then searched by individual spelling from a "misspelled list" I had on hand (57 in all).  I doubled checked the arithmetic with the 1930 census and the percentages were the same.  You will still miss some wild spellings due to illiteracy then phonetic spelling by the enumerator, poor handwriting of the enumerator and poor translation by the person who devised the index.  The best bet - always check the name from the original if you can.  Print out a copy of the table and have it handy next time you search.