Thomas Benjamin Cooper 1912–1988

Result: NULL IN BOTH - AND IN THE FIRST IT IS PURE COVERAGE, PROVED FROM THE COLLECTION'S OWN COUNTY LIST. (a) The 18 rows for 'Velma Caskey' in coll. 9168 are every one of them a WILLIAM Caskey (plus two Kasko/Kaska): the engine found no Velma at all and fell back on the surname. The counties on them are Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery and Williamson. (b) AND THAT IS BECAUSE HER COUNTY IS NOT IN THE COLLECTION. The collection publishes its sources - 47 named counties - and the list runs Anderson, Bexar, Brazoria, Burnet, Cameron, Collin, Culberson, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Erath, Fort Bend, Franklin, Grayson, Gregg, Harris, Hays, Hidalgo, Hood, Hopkins, Hunt, Jefferson, Johnson, Kaufman, Kerr, Llano, Lubbock, McLennan, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Nueces, Orange, Red River, Reeves, Rockwall, Shelby, Smith, Tarrant, Taylor, Titus, Travis, Tyler, Upshur, Victoria, Washington, Wichita, Williamson. NEITHER NAVARRO NOR TRINITY IS AMONG THEM. Texas has 254 counties; this collection holds 47. ⇒ A COVERAGE GAP, NOT A NULL ABOUT THEM, and the 14.9-million-record size is exactly what makes that counter-intuitive. (c) coll. 61383 returns zero for Velma Caskey, and its surname-only list shows a DIFFERENT and mostly older county set - Willacy, Stephens, Shackelford, Henderson, Bell, Milam, Mitchell, Coryell, Hill, McLennan, Lampasas. THAT IS A PAGE-1 READ OF 6 PAGES AND IS NOT WRITTEN AS A COVERAGE FINDING: 61383 publishes no source list, so its counties can only be inferred from results, and 93 rows went unread. Navarro and Trinity simply did not appear. WHAT IS LEFT, and it is not another Ancestry search: the Navarro County Clerk's marriage records at Corsicana (and Trinity Co. at Groveton) direct, or FamilySearch's own Texas county marriage films, or a Corsicana newspaper licence/announcement column for 1930-1932 - the same instrument that dated Lewis Cooper's marriage this morning ([J.561]).

Result: Closed from disk → [D.677], [D.678]. Both sides now linked.

Result: Only her own 1950 Skagway census row identifiable ([D.739]); no marriage or later record recognisably hers - she probably married. Next: search by her 1950 Skagway residence with a spouse/marriage filter, or the Alaska/Washington marriage indexes c. 1952-60.

Result: NO MEMORIAL LOCATED - Maryland, Mississippi, Texas (Thomas Franklin, 1913-1988, Houston), England and other Thomas Coopers. He was cremated at Everett, Washington, 12 Jan 1988, so there may be no grave.

Result: FOUND: WWII draft card (Corsicana 1940), Washington death record 1988, SSACI, public records (Seattle) - all index only; tree naming son Jimmie Jack.

Result: GZWF-M8V Thomas Benjamin Cooper, 11 Mar 1912 Corsicana - 11 Jan 1988 Edmonds WA; parents James Henry Cooper and Viva Aline Carrigan; wives Velma Grace Caskey and Aline Mary Carmichael; children Shirley Jean and James Jack (b. 11 Sep [1932]).

Result: No obituary for either.

Result: No notice for him (one 'Thomas Cooper' hit, Port Angeles, 4 Feb 1988, not him; the rest unrelated). newspapers.com does not appear to hold the Seattle or Everett dailies for these dates.

Result: FOUND: paid funeral notice, Seattle Post-Intelligencer 15 Jan 1988 [J.427], repeated 16 Jan 1988 [J.428] - wife Aline, four children (unnamed), eight grandchildren, one great-grandchild; no services. Seattle Times hits were unrelated.

Result: No 2017 obituary for Aline Mary (Carmichael) Cooper Newman; hits were other women (Harleton TX 2002, Baton Rouge 1995).

Result: No match. Web search for 'Aline Mary Newman' / 'Bunny Newman' 2017 Bothell also null; the Ancestry obituary index points at a dead tributes.com page.