data-quality

I am trying to find a reliable method for matching duplicate person records within the database. The data has some serious data quality issues which I am also trying to fix but until I have the go-ahead to do so I am stuck with the data I have got. The table columns available to me are: SURNAME VARCHAR2(43) FORENAME VARCHAR2(38) BIRTH_DATE DATE ADDRESS_LINE1 VARCHAR2(60) ADDRESS_LINE2 VARCHAR2(60) ADDRESS_LINE3 VARCHAR2(60) ADDRESS_LINE4 VARCHAR2(60) ADDRESS_LINE5 VARCHAR2(60) POSTCODE VARCHAR2(15) The SOUNDEX function is relatively limited for this use but the UTL_MATCH package seems to offer

Here's an interesting problem. I have an oracle database with name & address information which needs to be kept current. We get data feeds from a number of different gov't sources, and need to figure out matches, and whether or not to update the db with the data, or if a new record needs to be created. There isn't any sort of unique identifier that can be used to tie records together, and the data quality isn't always that good - there will always be typos, people using different names (i.e. Joe vs. Joseph), etc. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's worked on this type of problem