NJ Return of Marriages, Township of Green, Sussex Co., 1 June 1874 – 1 June 1875, page 303, entry 4 — Andrew J. Cooper × Angaline S. Kishpaugh, married at Newton by J. S. Boswell, 19 April [1875]. The Names of Parents column gives the groom's parents as Wm S. Cooper and Cathrine R. Cooper — the primary-source attestation that [p.1792] Andrew J. is the son of [p.1775] William Shafer Cooper and [p.1776] Catharine R. (Dennis) — and the bride's as Henry D. Kishpaugh and Elizabeth Kishpaugh.

Transcription and notes

Data from the document [verbatim]

Sheet heading: "THESE SHEETS MUST NOT BE MUTILATED OR DEFACED, BUT RETURNED TO THE SECRETARY'S OFFICE PERFECT, AS THEY ARE TO BE BOUND." · page 303

Return of Marriages in the Township of Green, County of Sussex, State of New Jersey, from the 1st day of June 1874 to the 1st day of June 1875.

Entry No. 4, column by column:

The YEAR is not written in the date cell

The Date of Marriage column reads only "April 19". The year is not in that cell. It is fixed to 1875 by the return's own printed heading — the sheet covers 1 June 1874 to 1 June 1875, and the only April in that span is April 1875 — and corroborated by the Time of Making Record, June 23rd 1875.

⇒ recorded as "19 April [1875]", with the brackets meaning derived-from-the-heading, not read. This is exactly the trap [[feedback_never_infer_only_record_what_you_see]] describes, where a year was taken from a volume's title card instead of the page; here the derivation is stated rather than silently absorbed.

What it settles

The groom's parents are given as Wm S Cooper and Cathrine R Cooper. Those are [p.1775] William Shafer Cooper and [p.1776] Catharine R. (Dennis) Cooper, married at Independence Twp in 1851 ([C.83]).

⇒ [p.1792] Andrew J. Cooper's parentage is now attested by a record, where before it rested on his being a child in William S.'s 1860 and 1870 households ([D.226], [D.546]).

The ages corroborate: M 20 ⇒ b. ~1854/55, matching his census age 25 in 1880 ([D.553]); F 19 ⇒ b. ~1855/56, matching Angaline's 23 in 1880.

Cross-references

• C.83 — the groom's own parents' marriage, which likewise names its groom's father, Robert Cooper [p.114]
• D.553 — their household five years later, with son Ulysses G. [p.1793]
• p.1792 · p.1794 · p.1795 · p.1796

2026-08-19 — RE-READ FROM CROPS. The record holds, and it gained two ages.

The entry was written on 2026-08-18 from a whole-page view — the practice that put two wrong cells into [D.554] on the same day. Re-read from crops at up to 8x. The load-bearing content survives unchanged, which is worth saying plainly:

Entry 4 · April 19 · M. 20 · F. 19 · Single · J. S. Boswell · Newton · Newton · Newton · Andrew J Cooper / Anzaline S Cooper · Sussex Co N J · Wm S. Cooper, Cathrine R Cooper, Henry D Kishpaugh, Elizabeth Kishpaugh · Farmer, Farmer · June 23

The parentage attestation is intact — Wm S. Cooper and Cathrine R Cooper are legible at 8x. This remains the record that makes [p.1792]'s parentage attested rather than inferred from census co-residence.

NEW — the Age of each column, which the first pass did not capture at all

M. 20 · F. 19. Both fit exactly and independently:

• Andrew J., b. Feb 1855 ([D.554]) ⇒ 20 in April 1875
• Angeline, b. 9 Feb 1856 ([G.507]) ⇒ turned 19 two months before the wedding

This matters more than a routine addition. [D.554]'s "married 24 years" — the cell that turned out to be an illegible blot — had been the corroboration for this marriage date, and its withdrawal left [C.86] standing alone. The ages are a genuine replacement for that lost support, and they are on this page rather than another.

Two things that do NOT resolve at 8x

1. The bride's given name reads "Anzaline", not "Angaline". The third letter is a descender with a sharp top; z and g are both defensible in this hand and the page offers no second instance to compare. Recorded as Anzaline [z or g]. (The catalog's standard form for her is Angeline, from [G.507]; nothing here overturns that — the return is one clerk's spelling of a name he heard.)
2. The Occupat'n column carries TWO entries, both "Farmer" — and whose occupation they are is not settled by the page. A crop spanning the Parties, Parents and Occupat'n columns at one vertical scale was made specifically to test it, and the alignment is genuinely ambiguous: the parties occupy two lines and the parents four, the two "Farmer"s sit at the 2nd and 3rd line-slots, so the lower one aligns with Henry D Kishpaugh while the upper one aligns with Cathrine R Cooper — neither a clean parties reading nor a clean fathers reading.

⇒ Kept as "both parties, Farmer", graded probable. Two entries for two parties is the likelier construction, it is the reading [p.1792] already carries, and a clerk repeating the groom's trade on the bride's line is a known habit of these returns. But a bride recorded as "Farmer" is odd on its face, and if this column is ever needed to carry weight, re-read it against another entry on the same page where the parents' trades differ.

(Recorded candidly: this note first said the fact should be removed as "an assignment, not a reading". That was an overcorrection made minutes earlier in the same pass — the alignment test above had not been run yet, and [p.1792] already stated "both Farmer" from an independent read. Stripping a probably-correct fact is as much an error as asserting a wrong one.)

Andrew J.'s occupation is separately attested as Mason in 1900 ([D.554]) — trades change.

Also confirmed at crop scale

• The date cell reads "April 19" with no year written in it — the year 1875 comes from the return's printed span ("from the 1st day of June 1874 to the 1st day of June 1875", read at 1x) and from the Time of Making Record column, June 23. The entry's bracketed [1875] was correct to bracket it, and stays bracketed.
• Page 303, and the header "THESE SHEETS MUST NOT BE MUTILATED OR DEFACED…".
• Entry 4's neighbours: 1 Howell/Carrie E. (Dec 24), 2 Austin Vass/Ella J. (Dec 23), 3 Samuel S. Lam-/Permelia M. Lam- (Nov 12), 5 Charles F. Ay-/Mallie A. Ay- (Dec 9). Entry 4 is the only Cooper on the page.