Many websites allow for the use of wildcards when performing searches. These tools search for a variety of alternate spellings with one search term.
Typically an asterisk provides the broadest sort of wildcard search. In this case, a word that has any number of letters in place of the * symbol will be returned. Neil* returns Neil, Neill, Neily, Neilly, Neilsen, Neilson, etc. G*ldenst*n returns Goldenstein, Goldenstien, Guldenstein, Guldenstien, but not Goldstein. H*le returns Hale, Hole, Hostle, etc.
It never hurts to review a list of alternate spellings to make certain that wildcard searches will return references to all those spellings. Normally I use “tr*t*tter in order to search for variations on Trautvetter. It catches most of them and also does not return references to the last name of Trotter which makes it particularly effective. It does not however catch references to the name that end in “feather” or “weather” because those two renditions do not end in “tter.”
In order to effectively search, I look for “tr*t*tter” and then “tr*t*ther.”
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