tkwhsimms@hovac.com writes: > Most of the time when I have seen that on either census records or tax > lists it means > JOHN OF WETHERS JEFFRIES John is the son of Wethers Jeffries, as opposed > to a different John Jeffries. How do you know that? Why would a "tax assessor" care about family relations? Wouldn't he only care about whose rent/tax was paid, & whose not? There are a large number (100-200 scattered over various northern neck and maybe other counties), most are of the form firstname1 of surname1 surname2. They represent a very small subset of the complete rolls. While there are many people of the 18th century named in this fashion, eg "Smith Rankin" in Berkeley Co or "Lynaugh Helm" in Fauquier and nearby counties, there are way too many of these kinds of entries in the rent rolls for this to be the likeliest explanation. I have looked for many of these entries as a person named "surname1 surname2" and come up empty. It doesn't mean they never existed, but it makes the explanation given less likely. I also have several cases where I know for sure that "surname1" cannot (could not have been) be the first name of any real person or father of the person in question (unless he had several fathers :^) We have to look at the originals and see how the data is recorded to get a clue to the intent. Or a study of the actual data. > http://genforum.genealogy.com/va/bedford/messages/812.html > It speaks of the Quit-Rents and an Edit drop down menu, Find Nice posting, but it speaks only of the qr of 1704, which is too early for us and probably doesn't apply anyway, and also doesn't say where this or other rent rolls are. Thanks, ==mwh