Warren Co., N.J., Return of Marriages, book AH — Hardwick Twp pages 202–203 (DGS 4210793 images 219–221) and Harmony Twp page 204, return of 1 May 1861 – 1 May 1862 (image 222); FamilySearch Center re-captures of 17 September 2026.

What this document records

🎯 why these pages

Levi H. Cooper Levi H. Cooper was unmarried in his father's house in June 1860 ([D.470]) and had a wife and child by 1864 ([B.108]), so his marriage falls in mid-1860 – 1863. A Warren or Sussex return of those years names both parties' parents, which would say whether his father was John Cooper John of Independence. Ancestry's index panel flagged images 219–221 as carrying index rows for 1861, Warren with no names attached — the only frames in that sweep that could not be cleared.

✅ harmony page 204 is a clean negative

Image 222, printed page 204: "RETURN OF MARRIAGES in the Township of Harmony, County of Warren, State of New Jersey, from the 1st day of May 1861 to the 1st day of May 1862." Nine marriages, both name columns read at 4×. Parties: Elisha Bird × Sarah Hampton · Owen Elbert × Sarah Butler · William Kirst × Jemima Vancleve · William C. Rinehart × Serena Snyder · John L. Rayston[?] × Rebecka Waldron · Randolph Hummers[?] × Lizzie Bird · Henry Whitesell × Catharine Warman · Peter C. Rinehart × Mary Hilliard · George Cole × Mary Ellen Cline. Parents: Elizabeth Bird · Joseph Hampton · Mary Elbert · Nathan & Christina B. · Elizabeth Kirst · Cornelius & Mary Vancleve · George C. & Mary Rinehart · Sarah Snyder · Jacob & Elizabeth · Barnabas & Sarah · Elisha & Charlotte · Margaret Bird · Mary Whitesell · Thomas Warman · George Rinehart · Philip & Mary · James & Sarah Cole · Mary Cline. No Cooper, Goble, Levi or Eliza — as a party, as a parent, or as an occupation (the trades on this page are machinist, farmer and printer).

⛔ hardwick pages 202 203 still will not resolve

Images 219 (page 202), 220 (page 203) and 221 (page 203 again) all carry the printed heading "…in the Township of Hardwick, County of Warren…" — the township legible at 4× — and each holds two or three marriage rows. The parties' and parents' names do not resolve at any magnification the capture supports. So this is NOT an exclusion. No Cooper is legible on these pages, but neither is anybody else; the pages cannot be cleared and cannot be claimed. The return years on these pages were NOT read. The heading's two year fields end in "18__" with a single handwritten digit each, and that digit is below the capture's resolution. 1861 is the Ancestry index panel's figure, not a reading — per RULE ZERO it is not asserted here.

📌 what the centre scan settled

The 17 September re-capture answers the question the August work left open: the faintness is in the page, not in Ancestry's delivery of it. The Center's own viewer, at the Center, produces the same unreadable frames — while page 204, three frames later on the same reel, is crisp. ⇒ A higher-resolution source of the same film would not help; only the original bound volume, or a re-filming, would.

🔍 and the full text index of the whole ah volume has no levi and no goble

A FamilySearch Full-Text search for "Cooper" across the entire DGS 4210793 group (all 623 images, marriages AND deaths) was run at the Center and saved as a 5-page PDF — 35 hits, the complete set. Not one snippet contains "Levi", and not one contains "Goble". The marriage-side hits are people the catalog already holds — Wm Shafer Cooper × Catharine R Dennis ([C.83]), Calvin C. Cooper ([C.109]), Genevia Cooper × John Hunter — plus occupation-column noise. OCR-limited, and therefore NOT an exclusion — and this volume is the proof of that. Full-Text returns nothing at all from pages 202–203, whose ink it cannot see any better than a human can. ⇒ a Full-Text null over a volume containing invisible pages says only that the legible pages are clear. File: (archive file)