Very true. I was doing a title search recently in Wolcott, Ct. The town hall had recently upgraded to an internal computerized data base. ..a giant leap forward for them because for years they were still on the old written index, and usually ran three months behind in updating their index. It took longer to search the day book than to do the rest of the search.

After they upgraded to a computer and were forced to update their index more often the Town Clerk noticed that a number of the younger title abstractors were relying entirely on the computer to perform their searches without verifying the information in the written index. What these searchers failed to realize was that this town keeps its tax liens and water/sewer liens in a different index which was not included on the computer. The searchers that relied entirely on the computer missed the tax liens entirely in their searches.

In order to properly abstract you have to know what you are looking for, the legal impact of the encumbrance on the property and each land records office's peculiarities in indexing. If you miss something in the search, you are personally liable on it. It could be a liability of several hundred thousand dollars if you missed a mortgage. Even if you are properly insured it could put an end to your abstracting career because your insurance carrier may cancel your insurance or raise the premium to astronomical levels. 

Try to pick up some practical experience in abstracting before striking out on your own. With your signing agent experience you may be able to pick up a job with a law firm that practices in real estate law. You may be able to have them train you for title abstracting.