I knew this rang a bell & a search of the Devon list's archives found the answer! This was posted in Aug 2001, from Joan Gaskin (not me). >>snip<< SMS or S M S in 1881 Census SMS stands for Subordinate Medical Service. It is not a qualification nor an occupation as such, but rather a category and you'll probably find that on the actual census page SMS is written in a different handwriting from the rest of the entry. The letters would have been added some time after the enumerator had filled in the form by one of the GRO's clerks as part of the process of analysing the census data. SMS was a category used to cover anyone involved in the medical world who was not a qualified doctor or dentist, or a medical student. Sub-Medical Nurse, ie a nurse taking patient(s) into her own home and being under payment and supervision of a doctor. She would not have qualifications as we think of them today, but would be a well thought of member of her community. They were usually older respectable women. Sometimes they were Nurse (SMS) - sub-medical servant - when they nursed a patient in a patient's own home. >>snip<< this might be of interest:- http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~matthew/work/occlass.htm and use your "find(on this page)" for 'nurse' HTH Louise ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret Mason" <margaret.mason123@ntlworld.com> To: <ENG-DEV-SOUTHHAMS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 8:23 PM Subject: [SPAM] [SOUTHHAMS] Occupation > Could someone please tell me what a nurse (SMS) is? One of my ancestors > had an unexpected informant on his death certificate. When I looked her up > in the 1881 LDS census it said she was a nurse (SMS). I would be grateful > if someone could let me know what this means. Many thanks, Margaret > > > ============================== > Search Family and Local Histories for stories about your family and the > areas they lived. Over 85 million names added in the last 12 months. > Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13966/rd.ashx >