Ohio, Wyandot County Probate Court, "Complete records 1887-1897 vol 7-9", volume 7 pages 376-379 — the recorded cause of C. J. Spencer, administrator of G. G. Cooper, deceased, v. Alvin Cooper et al.: the petition to sell real estate filed 24 November 1888, the defendants' signed consent, the publisher's affidavit and the order of sale of 27 November 1888; FamilySearch DGS 5876850 images 219-220.

What this document records

The caption and parties verbatim

Page 376, the case caption and the parties — every name crop-verified at ~3.2×: "C. J. Spencer, Administrator, Plaintiff vs Alvin Cooper et al. Be it remembered that heretofore, to wit, on Nov. 24, 1888 a petition was filed herein which is in the words and figures following: · C. J. Spencer, Administrator of G. G. Cooper, Deceased. Pltff. · **Against · Alvin Cooper, Lydia Cooper, Angeline Cooper, Elvira Cooper. Defts. *· In the Probate Court of Wyandot County, O. — Petition to sell Real estate*."

The sentence that makes this the document

"Said defendants are the only children and heirs at law of the said decedent." Read in three overlapping crops at ~3.2×. ⇒ the court record states, in terms, that Alvin, Lydia, Angeline and Elvira were G. G. Cooper's ONLY children. Not "the heirs", not "the parties in interest" — only children and heirs at law. This is the first document on the entire Wyandot thread that enumerates a Cooper family as a closed set. Every prior source — censuses, the cemetery transcription, the deed indexes — gave a household or a stone at a moment in time, which can always be incomplete. A petition to sell must name every heir or the sale is void, so the class is exhaustive as of November 1888. What "only children" does and does not exclude. It excludes other children living in 1888, and it excludes the issue of a deceased child — who would have had to be joined in their parent's place, and none is. It does NOT exclude a child who died without issue before 1888, who simply would not be a party. ⇒ "his only surviving children and the representatives of any who died leaving issue" is the exact force of it.

The real estate verbatim

"Said G. G. Cooper died seized in fee simple of the following described real estate situate in the County of Wyandot and State of Ohio, and in the village of Mexico, to wit: lots no. forty (40), forty two (42), forty one (41) and forty four (44)." Crop-verified at ~3.2×, and an exact match to both deed indexes: [K.103] has him acquiring lot 40 (1859, from Michael Keens), lots 42-44 (1865, Robison) and lot 41 (1868, Gibson), and [K.102] has the administrator conveying "lots 40-41-42-44 Mexico" on 29 Dec 1888 at 44/157. Four lots assembled over nine years and sold as one parcel by his administrator — the chain closes on itself.

The consent signed by all four children

Page 377 carries the defendants' own signed waiver and consent, which is better evidence than the caption because it is in their hands: "We the undersigned parties defendant to the petition in the above entitled action, hereby waive issuing and service of summons and voluntarily enter our appearance as such defendant and we do hereby consent to the sale of the real estate described in said petition according to the prayer of the same." Signed — all four crop-verified in one 3.6× crop: Lydia Cooper · Alvin Cooper · Elvira Deats · Angeline W. Cooper Elvira signs Deats, not Cooper — so she was married, and the petition's caption used her maiden surname. → [name.619] Angeline W. — the middle initial matches the Angeline W. of [name.495]'s 1880 Tymochtee household. All four signed personally and none appears by guardian or next friend ⇒ all four were of full age in November 1888, which puts every birth at 1867 or earlier. No widow is a party, consistent with [G.540]: Susan (née Price) died 13 Feb 1884.

How the four match the 1880 household

Three of the four were already known; the fourth is new. | 1888 petition | [name.495]'s 1880 Tymochtee household | |---|---| | Alvin Cooper | Alvin W. | | Lydia Cooper | Lydia A. | | Angeline W. Cooper | Angeline W. | | Elvira (Cooper) Deats | not in the 1880 household | Elvira's absence from the 1880 census is exactly what one expects of a daughter already married and keeping her own house — and she signs a married surname eight years later. An inference, not a finding, and recorded as such; she could equally have been living elsewhere unmarried in 1880. And note what is NOT here: no son named John, and no son named George. ⇒ this document says nothing for or against John Cooper John Cooper being a brother of George Green; it speaks only to George Green's own children.

The administrator conflict is resolved

[A.191]'s "C. J. Yentzer" was an index-clerk slip. The administrator is C. J. SPENCER. The case caption and the plaintiff's style on this page both read "C. J. Spencer", crop-verified at ~3.2× — the same tall looped S and descending p as on the bond at [A.189]. Two primary records against one index row: the bond and recorded Letters ([A.189]) and this engrossed complete record both say Spencer; only the general index says Yentzer. And the direction of error is the expected one — a general index is compiled after the fact from the dockets, while a bond and a complete record transcribe the instruments themselves. ⇒ the conflict flagged at [A.191] is closed, [name.613] keeps its name, and no name.N is created for "Yentzer". The successor-administrator hypothesis is not needed and is dropped: Spencer is still the administrator in November 1888, two years after his appointment.

What the petition says about the estate desc

[desc] — read at ~0.9× only and NOT crop-verified. Recorded because it frames the case, not because the figures are to be relied on: valid debts presented for payment about $354.30; costs of administration about $50; total personal estate and effects $234.37, "being wholly insufficient to pay the debts and costs of administration aforesaid"; the real estate appraised, by the appraisers of the personal property, at $425.00. Attorneys for plaintiff Grizzell and Carter [?]. Notice published in The Wyandot Chief, Upper Sandusky, for four successive weeks from 7 December 1888, per the affidavit of publisher H. A. Tracht [?] sworn before D. D. Clayton, Probate Judge, 29 December 1888. All of the above wants crop-verification before any figure is quoted.

The order of sale verbatim desc

The case continues onto pages 378-379 (film image 220) and ends there. [desc] — read at ~0.9× and NOT crop-verified, recorded for its structure rather than its wording: "…confirmed. And it is by the Court ordered that the said administrator advertise and sell the real estate aforesaid at public vendue for cash in hand on the day of sale and make due return to this Court." — D. D. Clayton, Probate Judge Then the writ itself, headed Order of Sale: "To C. J. Spencer administrator of the estate of G. G. Cooper, deceased, Greeting: In obedience to an order and decree of the Probate Court … made on the 27th day of November 1888, in a certain cause wherein you as the administrator … are complainant and Alvin Cooper et al are defendants, you are commanded to proceed according to law to sell at public sale the following described premises, to wit: Lots Nos forty (40) forty two (42) forty one (41) and forty four (44), said sale to be made at the door of the court house for not less than two thirds the appraised value thereof, and upon the following terms to wit: cash in hand on the day of sale…" — dated and sealed at Upper Sandusky the 27th day of November A.D. 1888, D. D. Clayton, Probate Judge.

What this record does not carry

THE CASE ENDS AT THE ORDER OF SALE, AND THAT IS A BOUNDED FINDING, NOT A GAP IN THE READING. The entry runs pages 376-379 and stops partway down page 379, signed by the Probate Judge; the remainder of page 379 is blank until the next case ("In the matter of the Assignment of Wm. H. Pierce to James L. Cook", filed 7 Nov 1888) begins. ⇒ this Complete Record carries the petition, the defendants' consent, the publisher's affidavit, the notice and the order of sale — and NOTHING FURTHER. No return of sale, no confirmation, no distribution. Which corroborates [A.191] rather than contradicting it: the estate index sends the Final Account and the Distributive account to Record 18, a different book altogether. So the absence here is the index's own account of where those documents live, and the search for Record 18 is the right next step rather than a re-read of this volume.

How the page was located

Straight off [A.191]'s citation, which is the point of that entry. The estate index row gave "Sale of Real Estate — Record 7 p. 376", and the county's own volume list identified Record 7 as "Complete records 1887-1897 vol 7-9". One misread cost two probes, and it is the familiar one. Image 200's page number was read at 1× — on a 4,597-px plate, ~0.43× — as "358", which made the interpolation point the wrong way. At 6× the neighbouring frame read 356, so image 200 was 338: a 3 misread as a 5 at whole-plate scale. ⇒ RULE ZERO-B applies to page numbers used for navigation, not only to values destined for a field — a misread anchor wastes probes even when it never reaches the catalog. With the anchor right, two pages per frame put page 376 at image 219, exact on the next try.