Well. folks, we seem to have a difference of opinion on the meaning of "d. s. p.". The "Concise Genealogical Dictionary" defines it as "decessit sine parole", meaning "died without issue". A couple of people suggest "died single person". I suggest that neither is correct. For the first candidate, my Latin dictionary defines "decessit" as meaning withdrawn or retired. It does not list "parole" at all (the Latin for issue is "prole"). In the second case, the word "person" is superfluous - in English, we would simply say "died single" or "died unmarried". I believe the correct Latin term would be "obiit sine prole" (the double "i" is correct), meaning "died without issue". This form is also listed (correctly) in the Dictionary mentioned above. I suspect that the "d. s. p." is probably from a hybrid Latin-English term, "died sine prole". I believe that the important part is the lack of children - the person's marital status at death is often of less concern (for genealogical purposes). Gary Vincent