What does the abbreviation bds stand for in 1900 directory

Question

The 1900 directory shows employed as a bds. Is this a servant of some kind or boarding home? These old abbreviations are hard to interpret. She was a domestic prior to marriage. Anyone know the definition of bds in a 1900 Washington state directory?

Comments

Hello Andrew.

I found a list of abbrevations that may be helpful:

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~njmags/Glossaries/CityDirectoryAbbreviations.pdf

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Great link! Thank you : )

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You are welcome, Andrew.

Answer 1

Looking at other entries it appears that “bds” means “boards at.”   Could be living in a boarding house or with a family.  If the directory has a section by address you could figure out which it is by looking up the address.

Comments

I would agree .. as the abbreviation rms seems to indicate that the person rooms at the address that follows.

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Thank you I agree it’s not her Occupation it seems to be a type of residence. Like you said “boards at”. I thought at first Occupation but no Occupation listed for her here it seems

Answer 2

Boards (room and board)

Comments

Thank you Frank with this new info I was able to update her profile appropriately : )

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Glad it worked out OK.

Answer 3

b, bdg, bds =  boards (room and board)

Comments

When I was a brand new engineer, working for about 2 days, someone stopped at my desk and blurted out a question that was pure gibberish to me.  When he came up for air, I told him that I'm still very new here and have not yet learned to speak alphabet soup.

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You are funny Gaile - I have not learned to speak WikiTree yet!

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I remember when I started here - I was also brand new to genealogy.  It took me about a month to figure out what LNAB is.  It seems that every different field of special interest has its own alphabet soup language.

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Gaile, that was a hard one for me.  There was another one that I just couldn't figure out, but I can't remember it right now. And I looked all over for it too.

WikiTree language is a little different, but I AM learning, a little at a time.

Thanks to you and the other good people here!