Such instruction ill serves the fledgling genealogist in two ways. Beginning researchers seldom are experts in the interpretation of law. By abstracting documents, they may lose the only existing clues to identity or family connections. Abstract forms for legal documents rarely follow the exact arrangement of text within those records. When the text is segmented, to fit appropriately on the forms, other clues can be lost and meanings obscured.
Abstracts are nonetheless useful, in at least two important ways.
When we photocopy or transcribe records, it is still useful to abstract important details onto our data summaries for the individuals involved. Extracts Extracts do not summarize. They pull out, verbatim, a portion of a document, book, or article. They also require quotation marks around the entire text that is being copied word for word, punctuation point for punctuation point. Obviously, an abstract may contain an extract, if certain portions of a document are deemed so important that they need to be recorded verbatim.