What is a genealogical abstract? It is something you may come across in the research of other people when you are exploring records. Plainly speaking, an abstract in genealogy is an inventory of the most important details of a genealogical document. Abstracts are usually used when people are researching in the field and do not have the means or the permission to make a photocopy or computerized scan of a document. They can use abstracting to quickly get all the important points out of the document, so they can input it into their research on their family tree software later.
The trick to abstracting is to be able to quickly scan a genealogical document and decide what is really important to know and what can be left out. You want to include the important names, dates, and places, such as... Read More