Matching surname in two columns with different formats

[aquanole04]

I am adopted and am trying to find my birthparents. I know my mother was married in 1981 and divorced in 1982. I copied and pasted all the marriage record names from 1981 into one column and all the divorce records for 1982 in another column. I need to find a match and that should tell me who she is. However the formats are different.

ADEN;JERRY LEE VS ADEN;KAREN MARIE GEYER (this is how the divorce records name looks)


AMAYA,SABAS OMAR (this is the format of the marriage records. The females names are in a seperate column)

How do I match up the last names with out have to "FIND" each last name and compare the columns? I hope I'm making sense. Let me know if I need to upload the spreadsheet.

[rvasquez]

It would be helpful if you could upload a sample workbook that shows what you currently have and what your desired results are.

Thanks!