On 1/9/08 7:07 PM, "Elizabeth Shown Mills" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> When appendages such as this (B.S., F.R., S.T.) appear after names on
> Virginia censuses and tax rolls, they usually represent a mechanism to
> distinguish between individuals of the same name. B.S. might be Bull Slough.
> F.R. might be Fluvanna River. S.T. might be Son of Thomas. Or the initialism
> could represent the name of the individual's plantation.

Just to throw another possibility into the mix - I've seen people designated
as "blacksmith" or "b.s." on tax lists. Perhaps "BS" in this census record
could be an abbreviation for blacksmith.
 
> In this case, the three entries found for BS on those 25 pages all appear in
> situations in which there are two entries for men of the same name.
> 
> Stamped p. 129
> [consecutive entries]
> Hobson, BS, Samuel
> Hobson, Samuel
> 
> Stamped p. 134
> [17 entries intervene between these]
> Robinson BS, Field
> Robinson S.M. Field
> 
> Stamped p. 135
> [1 entry intervenes]
> Robinson John
> Robinson, BS, John

In the beginning of Cumberland county's census pages, there's a page of the
headings for the columns. It looks like column number 15 is for people
engaged in manufacturing, and blacksmithing could be considered as
manufacturing. 

The images I have access to, on Heritage Quest, are very poor quality, so
it's hard to be certain here. But, each of the 3 guys shown with a "BS" in
the above examples appears to have people listed in the manufacturing
column, which would be consistent with a blacksmith operation.

C.Etter

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