Abbreviations List

Here are some guidelines and suggestions for preparing your text for posting. The general idea is to be as brief and concise as possible, while still providing the maximum legibility and ease of understanding for your readers.

A few abbreviations/conventions are fairly common, and fairly standard. Here are some that I see researchers using frequently:

b. = born    dob = date of birth
d. = died     dod = date of death
m. = married
ca. = circa (which means "about this time")
bef = before
aft = after
s/o = son of
d/o = daughter of
+ = spouse
--> = special information here

"Tabbing" is best accomplished by spacing over, since not all e-mail programs are capable of reading tabs; some of them simply insert a single space, while others use their own system of measurement, each of which is likely to render the tabbed alignment incorrectly.

Surnames are generally given in all capitals, i.e., SHUMAN, SMITH, JONES, but the remainder of the text is in standard upper-and-lower case form.

Parenthesis marks () are frequently used to contain explanations of previous material.

Here are the standardized international abbreviations for a few European countries. For a more complete list, visit Country Abbreviations from the RSL.

Here are the standard Postal Service abbreviations for the United States (USA) and Canada (CAN):

Return to the REAVIS Family Home Page    All contents copyright © 1999, Reavis Family. All rights reserved. Created November 11, 1999. Send comments to: James Shuman URL: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~reavis/abbrev.html

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