Although it is becoming increasingly easy to access these records online now through the Maryland State Archives, the value that abstracts offer in locating records through their every name indexing, cannot be matched with the indexes available online. The official indexes do not always identify estate sales, bills of sale, Negro sales or manumissions, or depositions and do not index information within deeds, such as mention of neighbors, as well as other documents brought to the court to be recorded. Also, many researchers have difficulty reading the old hand written books, so this also provides a guide and finding aid for the beginning genealogist. The page numbers of the deeds in the original volume are given in the abstracts, so that when desired, the original deeds can be accessed and printed from the Maryland State Archives website.
Abstracts are best used as brief guides and indexes to original records, and to find people mentioned in deeds who would otherwise be lost in the records. This series of abstracts focuses on the names of parties in the deeds.
Mrs. Andersen has done a great service by compiling these abstracts to assist seasoned genealogists as well as family historians in their research.
Patricia Abelard Andersen
2011, 8½x11, paper, 142 pp.
ISBN:
101-PA012
