Acronyms of the Genealogy world

SAY WHAT???

I'm compiling a list of Genealogy acronyms.  Some may be familiar to you, others you may exclaim "SAY WHAT?"


When working on your genealogy, it is best to stick with known acronyms and not make up your own.  One should also spell out the abbreviations in the notes in case others don't know what it means, and in case you, yourself forget what the abbreviation means.









So take this test short quiz (don't worry its not graded) to see which ones you know.  I'll explain them all below the quiz.  There is a longer list of acronyms at this website:

AFN

BSO

COD

COL

COLL

DOB

DOD

DOM

GED

NBR

NEE

NMN

SIC

answers are below




XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AFN	Ancestral File Number
BSO	Bright Shiny Object	A distraction
COD	Codicil of a will	or is it cash on delivery
COL	COLored	or is it collections
COLL	COLLege	or is it collage
DOB	date of birth
DOD	date of death
DOM	date of marriage
GED	Gedcom	or General education diploma
NBR	neighbor	Number
NEE	maiden name
NMN	No middle name	no married name
SIC	thus, as written	ill

Now this list is not all inclusive, nor may the acronyms mean what I have here, remeber I took it all from one website.

The one that really bugs me is the NMN, as many use that for maiden name, but I grew up with a parent who didn't have a middle name and  they always put NMN for her middle name.  Am I right? It depends on who you ask.


What this tells us, is depending on your education, where you grew up, how old you are, etc, etc, different abbreviations mean different things to everyone.  So, rather than have your ancestor guessing at what you meant, take a few extra moments and spell it out, or at lease leave a key to decipher your "shorthand".


How many times do we read old census records or wills and say to our self "SAY WHAT??"

My DNA journey (part 2)

So I'm adopted (part 2)

Last week I talked bout being adopted and taking the ancestry test.

Here's the back story:

My adopted mom had been married prior to marrying my adopted father.  according to her (remember there are 3 sides to every story (his side, her side and the truth)  All I had was her side...

Her ex was powerful, and threatened her with all kinds of things, and to a young 22 year old, she was scared, so she let him take her girls (2 of them) and she never saw them again.  She would tell me stories all the time abut the girls and how she wanted to find them, well this was back in the 70s and 80s and searching for people was harder then than it is now.  But that didn't stop me.


While I looked for my real parents, I also looked secretly for her girls.  I had a few leads, but they were dead ends... My mom died in 1989, and I continued to look, scouring message boards on Ancestry, and roots web.  sending emails, and looking through records...NOTHING....


Fast forward to 2005 or so, and I get an email form a cousin who states she found the girls.  So I tell my older "sister" remember she is my adopted mom's daughter an probably no blood relation to me unless.....



Well in 2012 she offers to have us all (her, her sister and me) take a DNA test and she is going to pay for it.  This will prove if I am really part of the family or if I am just the "adopted daughter" of Jean.

So the DNA test was sent in, and 6-8 weeks later,  the results are in...no DNA match to my 2 sisters from my adopted mom.  So there goes the theory that I belongs to one of Jean's sisters.  But my "sisters" both said, we don't care what the DNA says, you are still our sister. 

I questioned my father, Lee, many times and he would just say I don't know, your mother handled the whole thing.  I believed him, as she was the one who handled everything in the family.

I questioned aunts on both sides, and every claimed to know nothing, so I was back to square one.

In 2011,  I lost my father.  He was my last hope of getting any info on my birth family.  But his determination to not tell me anything, made me question (at 48 years old) if he was really my birth father, and one of my childhood fantasies were really true.

Next week the continuation of my DNA story and what I find...







will be linked after articles post






part 1
part 3