Dr. Deborah A. Abbott

Deborah A. Abbott, PhD, is a professional genealogist, specializing in African American research, manuscript collections, and genealogy methodology. She is a Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Archives Advisory Commission member and serves on the Lake View (Ohio) Cemetery Outreach Committee. She is an associate with the Kentucky-Tennessee Associates based in Springfield, TN; past president of the African American Genealogical Society, Cleveland, OH; and a retired professor of Counseling from Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. She holds both the BS and M.Ed. degrees from Tuskegee University in Alabama and the PhD from Kent State University in Ohio.

Dr. Abbott is an instructor, as well as the coordinator for both the week-long African American tracts at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) held at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, and the Genealogy Research Institute of Pittsburgh, held at LaRoche University in Pittsburgh, PA. She is also an instructor at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) in Salt Lake City, UT. She presents lectures and workshops at national, state, and local genealogy conferences. She lectures at colleges, businesses & libraries. She has published in both the Ohio Genealogy News and Family Tree Magazines. Dr. Abbott can be seen teaching African American research entitled “Needles & Threads” on Ancestry Academy, an educational website video course for Ancestry.com. She coordinates monthly classes for the “Genealogy and Family History Clinic” for the Cleveland Public Library..

A Cleveland, Ohio native, Dr. Abbott is a life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Tuskegee University National Alumni Association, and Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland.