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Abbreviations & Acronyms: A Guide for Family Historians

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Kip Sperry has drawn from his vast experience in Genealogy to compile this reference work. This is an alphabetical list of many standard abbreviations along with a very short explanation. It is explained in the introduction that the book is not intended to be a complete list of all the abbreviations one would encounter in their own local research. The book does not instruct nor is it useful to determine the proper abbreviations to use in your own work. However, if you come upon unidentifiable abbreviations in your family history research, this book may just have the answer you seek. Entries such as lp (local preacher) and Twif (traveler's wife) will be helpful if you need that information, but if you don't know what a "stoker" (stkr) is, this won't tell you. It is not a dictionary but rather a basic list, yet a very valuable list if you're completely stumped as to the meaning of an abbreviation in your genealogical research. It is also valuable as you read through the list as it will help give you a sense of the ways words were abbreviated which may help you decipher more local abbreviations not listed specifically in this book. I would like to have seen more detailed explanations, many more abbreviations listed, and a reverse index. However, for the many abbreviations and acronyms contained, it contains information you will not readily find anywhere else. If you regularly get into historical documents in your family research, you are likely to find this compilation beneficial.