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Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.

American politician (1922-2011)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7367490 ↗
Source-derived summary

Roscoe Bolar Stephenson Jr. (February 22, 1922 – May 30, 2011) was an American jurist from Virginia. He was born at Covington, Virginia. He attended the public schools of Alleghany County, Virginia, and received both his B.A. (1943) and his J.D. (1947) from Washington and Lee University. After being admitted to the bar in 1947, he practiced law in Covington for twenty-six years. From 1952 to 1964, he served as Commonwealth's Attorney for Alleghany County. On July 12, 1973, he was elected as a judge for the Twenty-Fifth Judicial Circuit. He stayed in that position until he was elected to the Supreme Court of Virginia in February 1981. Justice Stephenson retired from active service in 1997, but continued his service to the Court as a Senior Justice until mid-2010. Justice Stephenson died on May 30, 2011, in Covington, Virginia.

Editorial summary

“Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.” enters the record as american politician (1922-2011). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Roscoe, Stephenson and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1922, 2011, 1943, 1947—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1922-02-22. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Roscoe, Stephenson and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Roscoe, Stephenson and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7367490. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2011, 1943 and 1947.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr. primary sources, Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr. archive and Roscoe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.