Genealogy (Love of the Hunt)

WILDCARDS??  What r they and what websites use them?  Wildcards are characters that can stand in 4 any letter of a name.  This catches alternate spellings of the name on most sites.  A (*) stands in 4 zero or more letters in a name and a (?) stands in 4 exactly 1 letter.   Example --  Dumpski can be spelled several ways so to try and capture all the spellings type dump*.  You are hunting not only for the different ways your relatives spelled their name but also the different ways the interpreters spelled the name or interpreted the spelling.  Using the (?) example would be like Rob?rt which can capture robert or robart.  Each websites have different rules.   Before searching, learn the rules of that particular website as to what wildcards are associated with the site.  A few of the popular websites such as ancestry.com uses the * at the beginning or end of the name but not both and u must use 3 letters associated with the name.   Footnote.com you must have 2 letters before the wildcard and 2 letters after.  cg