I am Pat Abbott, a retired psychologist living the retirement dream at the beach in North Carolina. I am honored to be the recipient of the 2024 National Genealogical Society Award for Excellence: Genealogy and Family History Book for my book "The Descendants of William and Grace Ballard of Andover Through Six Generations." This award is presented to an individual or nonprofit organization for a specific, significant single contribution in the form of a family genealogy or family history book published during the past three years that serves to foster scholarship and/or otherwise advances or promotes excellence in genealogy.

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My serious efforts in genealogy began about ten years ago researching my own family genealogy which includes early New England immigrants starting with the Mayflower and continuing with the Great Migration, early settlers of New Netherland in 1624, and more recent immigrants in the late stages of the exodus from Ireland after the potato famine in the nineteenth century, and immigrants from the former Kingdom of Hanover.

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The work on my own family history culminated with the publication of a family narrative designed for my extended family. Concurrent with that, I began compiling "one-name" genealogies based on Andover families who were my direct ancestors. These compilations include both male and female descendants, so are not truly one-name studies. Completed volumes include descendants of George Abbott and Hannah Chandler, Nicholas Holt and his wives Elizabeth and Hannah, Robert Russell and Mary Marshall, John and Elizabeth Stevens, Robert Gray and Hannah Holt, William and Grace Ballard, and Richard and Joanna Barker. Each of these volumes covers six generations of descendants and each covers approximately 1,000 (or more) complete families. I have also published four journal articles, three in The Essex Genealogist, on the children of John Simmons and Elizabeth Boynton, on the children of Stephen Barker and Mary Abbott, and one distinguishing two William Holts who have been confused in prior publications. A fourth article appeared in The New Hampshire Genealogical Record and dealt with William Ballard of Andover and Peterborough.

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Along the way, I have written small stories or blogs originally focused on my ancestors but expanded to cover other things I have found interesting. Many of those stories are found on this web site.

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Works in progress are a book covering the descendants of Daniel Poor and Mary Farnham and a major journal article covering the early generations of descendants of Benjamin and Ann Butterfield of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. 

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You can find my full tree as a public tree on Ancestry (Abbott Family Master Tree) which currently includes 128,000+ individuals. I am also providing a link to my online database: https://abbottgenealogy.org/. Access to the database site is free, although I ask that you register for the site to cut down on bot traffic. The database site also provides access to .pdf files of most of my books. 

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If you have any questions about my work, comments, or if you are interested in genealogy services, use the "Contact" button below. See the "Books" page for currently available books.

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Enjoy!

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Here is a link to my online database which currently contains over 128,000 individuals: https://abbottgenealogy.org/