New Jersey, Return of Deaths in the Township of Independence, County of Warren, 1 May 1862 – 1 May 1863, Vol. AH printed page 514 — lines 1 and 2, Emma E. Cooper and Anna M. Cooper. Ancestry collection 62483, image group 004210793, image 547 of 623.

What this document records

The printed header verbatim

"RETURN OF DEATHS in the township of Independence county of Warren State of New Jersey, from the first day of May 1862 to the first day of May 1863." — printed page 514. Same printed form and same columns as [F.215], [F.216], [F.217] and [F.278]. Same township as [F.216] and [F.278] — Independence.

The two cooper entries verbatim

Line 1 — Feby · Emma E. Cooper · Female · Single · 9 · occupation blank · place of death Quaker Settlement · place of birth Warren Co, N.J. · names of parents Wm S & Catharine Cooper · cause Diptheria · time of making record July 16. Line 2 — Feby · Anna M. Cooper · Do · Do · 5 · place of death Do · place of birth Sussex Co, N.J. · names of parents Wm S & Catharine Cooper · cause Do · time ". The date column reads Feby only — NO DAY OF MONTH for either girl.

The parents are named and they are ours

Wm S & Catharine Cooper = William Shafer Cooper William SHAFER Cooper and Catherine R (Dennis) Cooper Catharine R. (Dennis) Cooper, married 19 Dec 1851 in this same township per [C.83]. William Shafer Cooper is the son of Robert Cooper ROBERT COOPER, named as such on that 1851 marriage return. ⇒ These two girls are Robert Cooper's granddaughters. The S resolves at 10× on line 2, where it is unambiguous; line 1 carries the same initial less crisply. Ancestry's index drops the middle initial, giving only "Wm Cooper" — it is on the page.

And it closes a question the catalog had left open

William Shafer Cooper already listed an "Emma E. Cooper (ABT 1853)" and an "Anna M. Cooper (ABT 1857)" among his children — both confidence: probable, both cited only to [D.226], the 1860 census. This return names their parents outright, and the ages fit: Emma 9 in Feb 1863 ⇒ b. ~1853/54; Anna 5 ⇒ b. ~1857/58. ⇒ Both promoted from probable to certain. And it says what became of them — they disappear after the 1860 census because they died. Recorded because the catalog has been caught by the opposite error this month: an absence from a census was read as a death for Frances (Cooper) Keeney Frances, who had in fact married and lived to 1922. An absence is not an event. This is the event.

The two birthplaces track the family s move

Emma born Warren Co, N.J. (~1853/54) · Anna born Sussex Co, N.J. (~1857/58). Consistent with the household's recorded movements: William Shafer Cooper married in Independence Twp, Warren, in Dec 1851, and is enumerated in Green Twp, Sussex, in 1850, 1860 and 1870 ([D.546], [D.226]). The girls were born either side of that move, and died back in Warren. Not asserted beyond the cells — the return gives counties, not households.

One household one month

Two sisters, nine and five, dead of Diptheria in the same month, at the same place, returned on consecutive lines. The record presents them as one event, the same way [F.215] braces Aaron and Margaret together in the measles of April 1851.

Quaker settlement

Quaker Settlement is a locality in Independence Twp. The same place-word recurs across this township's returns: [F.278] gives John Cooper John Cooper's place of death as Settlement in 1867, and [F.282] gives Linsley Cooper's as Settlement in 1851. Recorded as a repeated place-name, NOT as a claim that these people were connected.