Wild cards are special symbols used in searches to
represent unknown letters in a word.
The * represents zero to five characters, while
the ? represents one character. Wild cards do not work with Soundex matches.
When searching with wild cards, at least the first or last character must not
be a wild card, and all searches containing wild cards must contain at least
three non-wild card letters. For example, though searching “*ohnson” and
“Johnso*” would work, “*ohnso*” would not; and while “*ill” would work, “*ll”
would not.
Example 1:
John, who was born and raised in Sweden, spelled his last name "Christiansson". After coming to the US it became "Christensen" and later "Christenson."
To have the best chance of finding multiple records for John, use wildcards and search for
"John Christ*s?n."
Example 2:
As I search for the last name "Ickes" often the "I" is mistaken for a "J" and a vowel is substituted for the "c" during the indexing process.
Using a wildcard, I could try "*kes".
And sure enough I get a hit for "Wm Jokes" whom I know is really "William Ickes":
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