diff --git a/gramps2/ChangeLog b/gramps2/ChangeLog
index 1ecc7134c..f40d15b95 100644
--- a/gramps2/ChangeLog
+++ b/gramps2/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2004-02-05  Alex Roitman  <shura@alex.neuro.umn.edu>
+	* src/plugins/Merge.py (gen_key,name_compare): 
+	Fall back to not using soundex if the charset can't be latin-1 encoded.
+
 2004-02-05  Michel Guitel  <michel.guitel@free.fr>
 	* doc/gramps-manual/fr/cmdline.xml: Update.
 	* doc/gramps-manual/fr/filtref.xml: Update.
diff --git a/gramps2/src/plugins/Merge.py b/gramps2/src/plugins/Merge.py
index 3e1c45754..3b406c937 100644
--- a/gramps2/src/plugins/Merge.py
+++ b/gramps2/src/plugins/Merge.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #
 # Gramps - a GTK+/GNOME based genealogy program
 #
-# Copyright (C) 2000  Donald N. Allingham
+# Copyright (C) 2000-2004  Donald N. Allingham
 #
 # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 # Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 #
 
+# $Id$
+
 "Database Processing/Merge people"
 
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -292,13 +294,19 @@ class Merge:
         
     def gen_key(self,val):
         if self.use_soundex:
-            return soundex.soundex(val)
+            try:
+                return soundex.soundex(val)
+            except UnicodeEncodeError:
+                return val
         else:
             return val
 
     def name_compare(self,s1,s2):
         if self.use_soundex:
-            return soundex.compare(s1,s2)
+            try:
+                return soundex.compare(s1,s2)
+            except UnicodeEncodeError:
+                return s1 == s2
         else:
             return s1 == s2