Returns of Births, Sussex Co. vol. AF — pages 140, ~156/157 and 169, DGS 4108975.

What this document records

🎯 page 169 frankford twp 1858 to 1859 a birth at the county house

The second row of the return, read across its full width at 8×: “Jan 31st 1859 | County House | Elizabeth Cooper | Female | Clementina Cooper Illegitimate | Laborer | Ditto” The County House is the Sussex County poorhouse; the first row of the same return is also a County House birth, and its occupation cell reads “Laborer coloured” — this clerk recorded such things. The year was tested: at 13× the terminal digit is a 9 with an open descender hook, against the closed double-loop 8 of the “Decr 1858” directly above it.

⚠️ two interlinear annotations whose row is ambiguous

Written between this row and the next, not inside either: “(Laborer in the State Prison)” and, to its right, “Mother in the County House”. They most plausibly belong to the Cooper row — its own occupation cell says only “Laborer”, which the parenthetical would elaborate, and its residence is a ditto resolving to County House, which “Mother in the County House” would restate. But the row below is Hester Mosier, also a lone mother with an empty occupation cell, and an absent father in the State Prison would explain that entry equally well. Not assigned. Both readings are recorded; a full-resolution capture would show which ruled line the annotation sits above.

🆕 clementina cooper is new to the catalog

No Clementina or Clementine Cooper of New Jersey is in the catalog. Do not conflate with Clementine (Cooper) Scott Clementine (Cooper) Scott — a Kentucky woman born about 1915-25, daughter of Henry Montgomery Cooper Henry Montgomery Cooper of Georgetown, Scott Co., named in her father's 1972 obituary. Fifty-odd years and a thousand miles apart; the shared unusual given name is the only connection and it is a coincidence until something says otherwise.

🎯 page 140 green twp 1856 57 anna mary cooper

[F.113]'s target for page 140 is “31 Sep[?] 1856 · Anna · father S”, and the page's matching row reads “Anna Mary Cooper · Female · Shafer[?] & Catharine Cooper · Laborer”. The index is RIGHT on this one — which, after 151, 195 and 206, is worth saying. The father's given name reads S-h/l-a-f-e-r; Shafer is the better reading and a common Sussex surname pressed into service as a given name, but Slafer is not excluded.

🔧 a correction to this entry and the cropping lesson behind it

This entry first recorded the surname as “probably NOT Cooper”. The reasoning was that, isolated at 12×, it read C-o-[tall ascender]-e-r, and Cooper needs a p, which descends. The ascender was not part of the word. It is the descender of the “g” in “Brannegan”, on the line immediately above, hanging down into the Cooper row — spotted by the maintainer. THE CROP ITSELF CAUSED THE ERROR. Tight cropping is the catalog's defence against row drift, but a crop that excludes the neighbouring line imports a stroke without showing where it came from. ⇒ crop tight to identify the ROW; crop with at least one line of context to read a GLYPH. And the control was on the page all along, one line up. The word “Cooper” appears in the OCCUPATION column of the row above — John Y. & Melinda Brannegan, a cooper by trade — in the same hand, one line apart. Same word, same clerk, ideal comparison. The barrel-maker trap that has produced nine false hits in this catalog turned out to be the thing that settles a real one.

🆕 a third green twp cooper household and the earliest

Shafer[?] & Catharine Cooper, Green Twp, 1856-57 — predating both [F.267] (1857-60) and [F.269] (1862-63). Minted as Shafer Cooper; retired 2026-10-08 as a duplicate of William Shafer Cooper (see that file). DO NOT confuse this Catharine with Catherine Ann (Shreckagast) Cooper Catherine (Shreckagast) Cooper, John W Cooper John W.'s first wife. John W. married on 31 October 1857 — after this return closed — so a Catharine Cooper already bearing children in Green Twp in 1856 is a different woman, and the coincidence of township, surname and given name makes this an easy and costly conflation.

🔑 and page 140 is green twp again which is a useful negative

This is the earlier Green Twp return, 1 May 1856 - 30 April 1857 — the same township as [F.267] (1857-60) and [F.269] (1862-63). Neither Aaron Cooper Jr Aaron Jr nor John W Cooper John W appears on it, and neither should: Aaron Jr married 4 Jul 1858 ([C.103]) and John W 31 Oct 1857. The absence is a consistency check on the whole Green Twp sequence rather than a gap.

📌 a ninth cooper as occupation

Page 140 also carries “George B. Brannegan · John Y. & Melinda Brannegan · Cooper” — the barrel-maker trap again, the ninth instance the catalog has logged.

❌ pages 156 and 157 negative

Images 165 and 166. All parents read: Lewis, Everitt, McDanolds, Speichen, Wood, Bell, Sparrigo, Nevens, Wodamer, Haggerty, Douse, McConnell, Cartright, Price, Holton, Case, Eaton, Robbins, Martin, Roe, Snook, Housel, Stphens, Russel, Sylcox, Riker. No Cooper. Printed page numbers not captured; ~156/157 derived from the image offset.