Sisser ref 14 — State Library Bulletin, History No. 1, April 1898 — Supplementary List of Marriage Licenses (University of the State of New York), p. 15 — 7 April 1694 NY marriage of Benjamin Cooper × Helena Wilkins

Transcription and notes

• Parent entry: L.13 — Fred Sisser III, 4 April 2016 letter. This entry is the verbatim transcription of Sisser's enclosed reference 14.
• Source: State Library Bulletin, History No. 1, April 1898 — Supplementary List of Marriage Licenses, University of the State of New York, Albany. Supplements E. B. O'Callaghan's 1860 Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the secretary of the province of New York previous to 1784 (Albany).
• Examined: 2026-04-26 (initial pass), upgraded 2026-04-26 with user-supplied page-9 zoom resolving prior [?] flags.
• Files:
• Title page + preface start: (image held in the family archive)
• Page 15 (the alphabetical "Co–Cra" entries containing the Cooper marriages): (image held in the family archive)
• User-supplied zoom of page 9 received in conversation 2026-04-26 — used to firm up readings in the Cooper-name entries and adjacent rows.

Source identification (scan p. 8 = title page + preface)

Verbatim title page text:

University of the State of New York

State Library Bulletin

HISTORY No. 1

April 1898

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF MARRIAGE LICENSES

PREFACE

Since the publication of the Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the secretary of the province of New York previous to 1784, Albany, 1860, to which this volume is a supplement, there have been found three thin folio volumes of marriage bonds which have been bound as v. 41 of the series of Marriage bonds. Of this volume, p. 1–66 cover the years 1753–53, p. 67–144 the years 1755–56, and p. 145–240 the year 1758. Some of these names were printed by E. B. O'Callaghan in the New York genealogical and biographical record, October 1871, 2:194–200, but they are all entered in this list as in Marriage bonds, v. 41. For an account of marriage licenses and description of the original volumes of Marriage bonds see introduction to the Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued previous to 1784.

The names in the present supplement have been obtained from the following sources:

1 Marriage bonds, v. 41, above mentioned.

2 Addenda on p. 478–80 of the volume entitled Names of per­sons for whom marriage licenses were issued previous to 1784, Albany 1860. This list of addenda contains names occurring in the original 40 volumes of Marriage bonds and overlooked in the [continues on next page — not in this scan]

(The 1898 publication is a supplement to E. B. O'Callaghan's 1860 Albany marriage-bonds compilation. The "M.B." abbreviation in the entries below = Marriage bonds; "G.B.R." = a separate bond/register series of the same archive.)

Page 15 content (scan p. 9) — verbatim transcription of Cooper-relevant entries

Header at top: "SUPPLEMENT TO MARRIAGE LICENSES 15"

Right-margin: handwritten "14" continuing the reference number.

The page is a long alphabetical list of "Co–Cra" surnames; each entry follows the format [Year] [Month abbr.] [Day] [Surname, given name], and [Spouse's name] [Source: M.B. or G.B.R. + volume:page].

** Cooper-name entries on page 15 (verbatim from user-supplied zoom 2026-04-26):**

1694 Ap. 7 Cooper, Benj., and Helena Wilkins G.B.R. 3: 92

1702 July 29 Cooper, John, and Hannah Frost G.B.R. 3: 91

1752 Dec. 16 Cooper, John, and Ruth Wilse M.B. 41: 31

(All three Cooper-name entries on page 15 listed above. Confirmed to be the only Cooper-surname grooms in the alphabetical "Co" run; no entries for Joseph Cooper, Daniel Cooper, or other Cooper given names on this page.)

Other entries in the same Co–Cra alphabetical block visible in the zoom (verbatim, including non-Cooper context entries):

1705 Sep. 29 Colsen, Robert, and Elizabeth Jones G.B.R. 3:194

1758 Aug. 5 Conoway, Terence, and Catharine Benson G.B.R. 2: 28

1694 Aug. 9 Cooley, Deborah, and Nicholas Fielding M.B. 41:204

1703 Dec. 14 Corbett, John, and Mary Graham G.B.R. 2: 26

1699 May 6 Corbitt, John, and Christian Milton G.B.R. 3:193

1698 June 30 Coreman, Daniel Petersz, and Anna Maria Plevier G.B.R. 3:193

1700 Jan. 19 C[o]rtlandt, Ann, and Step[hen] [partial — bottom of zoom cropped]

Lines visible in the lower-resolution full-page render but outside the user's zoom (transcribed where legible at native scan resolution; flagged [?] where uncertain):

1719/26 [?] Cole, Susannah, and John Marshal C.M.S.: 42 [?]

1655 July 27 Coleman, Henry, and Eleanor Hunt G.B.R. 4:74

1691 Dec. _ Coleman, Henry, and Mary Meads G.B.R. 4:51

1752 Mar. 27 Coleman, Thomas, and Elizabeth Roe M.B. 41:15

1716 June 14 Coles, Nathaniel, and Hannah Butler M.B. 41:343 [?]

1707 Aug. 4 Collier, Mary, and Jacob Wiltse [archive ref illegible at full-page resolution]

1659 Aug. 31 Collins, James [?], and Adam Ball M.B. 2:147

1692 Aug. 21 [?] Collins, James, and Elizabeth Kennedy G.B.R. 4:75

1701 Sept. 2 Collins, John, and Margaret Verplank G.B.R. 3:104 [?]

(Page 15 continues below the zoom with further "Cor-", "Cox", "Cranshire" entries — not transcribed in detail at this catalog pass; no further Cooper surname entries on page 15.)

Corrections from prior catalog readings (zoom-resolved 2026-04-26)

The first L.13n pass (also 2026-04-26, before the user-supplied zoom) flagged several readings as [?] and recorded several inferential identifications that the zoom now overturns. Per CLAUDE.md "Corrections are common — documents get re-read… Do not silently overwrite. Note the prior reading and why it changed":

Cooper-relevant content (corrected reading)

** Page 15 contains THREE Cooper-name marriage-license entries:**

1. "Cooper, Benj., and Helena Wilkins" — 1694 Ap. 7 — G.B.R. 3: 92 — the entry Sisser cites in his cover letter as ref 14 ("a Cooper by his given name being married in New York in April 1694, a year before your ancestor's birth"). Day-of-month "7" (was guessed as 6 in prior catalog pass).
2. "Cooper, John, and Hannah Frost" — 1702 July 29 — G.B.R. 3: 91 — a different John Cooper marriage, 1702.
3. "Cooper, John, and Ruth Wilse" — 1752 Dec. 16 — M.B. 41: 31 — much later, 1752; either yet another John Cooper or possibly Daniel Sr.'s son John (b. 20 Aug 1738, who would have been 14 in Dec 1752 — too young for marriage; so likely unrelated to our line).

The April 1694 Benj. Cooper × Helena Wilkins marriage is timeline-compatible with the Sisser hypothesis: - Marriage 7 Apr. 1694 → first child plausibly born ~1695 (= Daniel's birth year). - "Benj. Cooper" of 1694 NY may be the same "Benjamin Coupir" of 1698 Richmond Co. assessor record (per L.13k) — if so, the marriage establishes a wife (Helena Wilkins) and a chronological birth-of-children window.

Hannah-Wiltse-vs.-Eliner-Coper discrepancy — RESOLVED

Prior catalog passes flagged a discrepancy between this entry's wife (then read as "Hannah Wiltse") and L.13o ref 15's 1706 Staten Island census wife "Eliner Coper". With the zoom-corrected reading:

• 1694 marriage: Helena Wilkins (maiden surname Wilkins)
• 1706 census: Eliner Coper (married surname; wife of Benjaman Coper)

"Helena" and "Eliner" / "Eleanor" / "Hellena" are routine variant spellings of the same Latinate / Anglo-Dutch given name. The most parsimonious reading is that the 1694 bride and the 1706 census wife are the SAME PERSON — Helena (= Eliner) Wilkins, who married Benjamin Cooper on 7 Apr. 1694 and was still his wife at the 1706 Staten Island census. The "Hannah Wiltse" reading was a transcription error in the prior catalog pass; there is no need to posit a death + remarriage between 1694 and 1706.

Observations and notes

• ** PRIMARY-SOURCE-LEVEL DOCUMENTATION OF THE 7 APRIL 1694 BENJAMIN COOPER × HELENA WILKINS MARRIAGE.** The 1898 NY State Library Bulletin is a published transcription of original 17th-century NY marriage-bond records — the "M.B." (Marriage Bonds) and "G.B.R." (Bond Register) volumes are NY state archival series. Provided the 1898 transcription is faithful (which is the standard NY State Library Bulletin convention), the original marriage-bond document survives in NY state archives at G.B.R. volume 3, page 92.
• Wilkins surname (NEW lead, replacing the retired Wiltse lead). The Wilkins surname is English-origin and was reasonably common in 17th-century NY / Long Island. Note: Wilkins is NOT the Dutch-origin "Wiltse" surname (= Wiltsee, Wiltsie). The prior catalog claim that the Hannah Wiltse lead pointed to a Dutch-heritage Cooper-family connection through a Dutch maternal surname is RETIRED. Helena Wilkins was likely English (or Anglo-Dutch via given name) — this slightly weakens the Sisser thesis that Daniel Sr.'s heritage was thoroughly Dutch on both sides, though the paternal Cooper line (Coupir / Coper) remains plausibly Dutch on the spelling-trajectory evidence.
• Ref 14 is consistent with Sisser's cover-letter framing — Sisser explicitly cited ref 14 as "a Cooper by his given name being married in New York in April 1694, a year before your ancestor's birth." Verbatim confirmation on page 15 with the corrected wife's name.
• Sisser's hypothesis chain through ref 14 (corrected): (a) Benjamin Coupir = Staten Island assessor 1698 (per L.13k); (b) Benjamin Cooper = NY-marriage groom 1694 to Helena Wilkins (per ref 14); (c) hypothesis: same man, married 1694, settled Staten Island 1698 → had Daniel as a child ~1695. The hypothesis is timeline-consistent. However Sisser ruled it out at L.13o ref 15 ("though he had a number of sons in 1706… none was named Daniel"). Sisser's rule-out is independent of the wife's name and remains valid.
• The two other Cooper marriages on the page (John × Frost 1702, John × Wilse 1752) are NOT cited by Sisser in the cover letter and have no obvious connection to our Daniel-Sr. line. They may be relevant to ref 15's "Benjamin's number of sons in 1706" question if any of them are sons of Benjamin Cooper of Staten Island — chronologically, the John × Frost 1702 groom is age-plausibly the same John listed in the 1706 census's BOYS column under Benjaman Coper (age <16 in 1706 = b. after 1690; if Benjamin Jr. (the eldest of the 5 sons) m. ~1702, he would have been at the older end of teen ages by 1706 — but the 1706 census names BENJAMIN as eldest son, FRANCIS as second, then JOHN third — so John in 1702 marrying Hannah Frost would have been at most a child of ~12-15, too young for marriage). Most likely the 1702 and 1752 John Cooper marriages on this page are different John Coopers unrelated to the Staten Island Coper family on the 1706 census. The catalog records this with no kinship inference.
• Volume identification: the title page reads "State Library Bulletin / History No. 1 / April 1898." This is the University of the State of New York's State Library Bulletin series, History sub-series, issue 1, April 1898.
• No "Daniel Cooper" entry visible on page 15. The page covers Cooper-name marriages between 1694 and 1752; no Daniel Cooper marriage appears in this range. Daniel Sr. m. Grace Runyon 1726 per Littell — that marriage was in NJ (Piscataway / Somerset Co.), so would not appear in this NY-only volume.

Catalog impact

• ** Verbatim primary-source-level documentation of the 7 April 1694 NY Benjamin Cooper × Helena Wilkins marriage.** The catalog now has a clean transcription of this entry from the 1898 NY State Library Bulletin, with all prior [?] readings resolved.
• Hannah Wiltse hypothesis RETIRED. Earlier catalog passes treated "Hannah Wiltse" as a candidate Daniel-Sr.-mother surname lead. The corrected reading "Helena Wilkins" + the natural identification of Helena = Eliner of the 1706 census means the "Hannah Wiltse" lead never existed — it was a misread. No further Wiltse-family research is warranted from this entry.
• Joseph Cooper × Mary Graham 1701 entry RETIRED. Earlier catalog passes listed this as a fourth Cooper-name marriage on page 15. The corrected reading of the line shows it is "Corbett, John, and Mary Graham 1703 Dec. 14" — there is no Joseph Cooper marriage on this page. Any catalog text speculating about Joseph Cooper as a 1701 NY groom should be retracted.
• The Hannah-Wiltse-vs.-Eliner-Coper discrepancy is RESOLVED. Helena = Eliner = Eleanor; same person across 1694 marriage and 1706 census. Prior [L.13o](L.13o.yaml) discrepancy notes should be updated to reflect this resolution.
• Tagged [verbatim] entry-level — all Cooper-name entries now have full verbatim readings; prior [?] flags resolved by the user-supplied zoom.

2026-06-02 — the SAME license, cross-abstracted with a residence: "of Southampton, L.I."

The on-disk NYHS Abstracts of Wills Vol I (1665–1707), p.34 (Liber 5-6) independently abstracts this same 1694 license — and adds the groom's residence:

"Marriage License granted to Benjamin Cooper of Southampton, L.I., and Helena Williams, April 7, 1694."

Same date (April 7, 1694) and groom (Benjamin Cooper) as the State Library Bulletin entry above; two published abstracts of one license (G.B.R. 3:92). Two new facts from the NYHS rendering: - Residence "of Southampton, L.I." — establishes the groom as a Long Island (fam.1) Cooper who later appears on Staten Island (assessor 1698, L.13k) — i.e., a Southampton man who relocated to Staten Island's West Division. This reframes Sisser's "Benjamin Coupir of Staten Island" as Southampton-origin, and reinforces the L.13o rule-out of Benjamin as Daniel's father (no Daniel in the Southampton/Howell line, I.148). - Bride "Williams" (NYHS 1892) vs "Wilkins" — RESOLVED as Wilkins (maintainer-supplied 2026-06-02): AGBI (O'Callaghan 1860 marriage-license list), Ancestry American Marriages Before 1699, the NYC Compiled Marriage Index (NYGBR 1932 extracts), and The Cooper Collection Vol 5 No 1 all read Wilkins; NYHS's "Williams" is the lone outlier. Bride consolidated at p.580 Helena (Wilkins) Cooper (b. ~1672 Staten Island per Find A Grave).

Consolidated at p.579 Benjamin Cooper of Staten Island.

2026-06-02 (later) — read at the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT (NY Wills / Liber 5-6)

The maintainer supplied page images of the original NY Wills, Liber 5-6 (1693–1707) — the manuscript behind every published abstract above (FamilySearch image set 005518045). Artifact: (image held in the family archive) = liber p.34, marginal record №39. Zoomed ((image held in the family archive)) and read directly, the entry is [verbatim]:

"Licence of marriage granted unto Benjamin Cooper of Southampton in the County of Suffolke of the one party, and Helena Wilkins of the other party, this 7th of Aprill 1694."

Settles two points at the source: 1. Bride = Wilkins — the surname clearly ends "-kins," NOT "-ms" ⇒ the NYHS Abstracts of Wills "Williams" is a definitive misread. (Now: manuscript + 5 published abstracts vs the one NYHS outlier.) 2. Groom "of Southampton in the County of Suffolke" = Long Island — the fam.1 Southampton origin is in the original 1694 record, not merely a later abstract.

This upgrades the marriage from abstract-tier to manuscript-verbatim. (The same on-disk image set is the original Liber 5-6 that NYHS Abstracts of Wills Vol I abstracted — see the pr.2 NY-probate sweep.)

Open questions / follow-up

• Locate the original 1694 NY marriage-bond record at G.B.R. vol. 3, p. 92 — now that the archive reference is firmed up, the original survives (presumably) at NY State Archives. May carry additional details (parents' names, witnesses, residence township, age, or denomination of the parties). HIGHEST-VALUE follow-up.
• Trace Helena Wilkins forward. If she = the "Eliner Coper" of 1706 (almost certainly), her own genealogy + parents are the key to Daniel's maternal line — IF Sisser's separately-ruled-out hypothesis that Daniel was their child were ever resurrected. (Currently the 5-sons-no-Daniel ruling at L.13o holds.)
• Confirm Wilkins is English-origin vs. an Anglicization of a Dutch surname (e.g., Welkens, Welkins). Consult NYC / Long Island / Staten Island Wilkins-family records ca. 1670–1700.