In 1976, Onabe discovered that, in contrast to the Neukirch-Uchida results that were proved around the same time, a number field $K$ is not completely characterized by its absolute abelian Galois group $A_K$. The first examples of non-isomorphic $K$ having isomorphic $A_K$ were obtained on the basis of a classification by Kubota of idele class character groups in terms of their infinite families of Ulm invariants, and did not yield a description of $A_K$. In this paper, we provide a direct 'computation' of the profinite group $A_K$ for imaginary quadratic $K$, and use it to obtain many different $K$ that all have the same minimal absolute abelian Galois group.