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 To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html