Emma O. (Westbrook) Cooper 1868–1951

Result: FOUND -> [F.370]. "COOPER EMMA A · State File No. 48802 · Place of Death 19285 · Place of Residence 19285 · 12 · 51", in the New Jersey state death index for 1951 (Ancestry coll. 61260, image death_index_1951_a-k-00153), downloaded and filed. SHE IS THE ONLY EMMA COOPER IN THE 1951 NEW JERSEY INDEX - the page is alphabetical and ELMER and EVELYN bracket her - so this is not a "best of several candidates" identification. THE PLACE IS A CODE, NOT A NAME. 19285 is Ancestry's "Fredon, Sussex"; the plate says only 19285, and the volume carries no code key (image 3 of 928 is already into the ADAMS names). ⇒ Death date now DEC 1951 (was "between 1951 and 1952"), and the state file number is in hand for a certificate order.

Result: NULL ON (a), (b) AND (c) - ZERO ROWS EACH. There is no Amos Cooper of any year in the New Jersey Marriage Index 1901-2016, no Emma Auble, and no Pileswky at all. (c) IS THE INFORMATIVE ONE, AND IT IS A SPELLING RESULT RATHER THAN AN ABSENCE. (d) returns 459 rows carrying Pilewski, Pilewksi, Pilesky, Pileski, Pilecki, Pilecka, Pileckas, Pileggi and Pilegis - so the surname family is thick in New Jersey and "PILESWKY", which is how the 1950 enumerator wrote it on [D.832], is a spelling no index uses. ⇒ The daughter's marriage must be hunted under a VARIANT, not under the plate's spelling. A COVERAGE OBSERVATION, NOT A CONCLUSION: across the 50 Pile* rows read, the earliest date is 1931 and nothing from 1901-1930 appears at all, although the collection is titled 1901-2016 and the set is relevance-sorted rather than date-sorted. If that holds generally it would explain (c) - a Pileswky/Pilewski marriage of about 1915-1925 would be outside the index's real coverage - but it would NOT explain (a), since Amos's second marriage falls in 1935-1940, inside it. Worth testing properly before it is relied on anywhere else in the catalog.

Result: FOUND HER 1950 ROW - see [D.832] - and it gives her a DAUGHTER, Caroline E. Pileswky, that the catalog did not have. AND IT CORRECTED A MISTAKE OF MY OWN: the 1940 "gap" was not a gap. THE TWO RECORDS TOGETHER NARROW HER SECOND MARRIAGE. [D.705] has her as Amos's WIFE on 17 April 1940, and its own "residence 1 April 1935" column puts her at the same address as him (Newton, Sussex Co.) five years earlier. ⇒ The window for the Auble-to-Cooper remarriage closes at before April 1940, and the 1935 column suggests it may already have happened by 1935 - though living at the same address is not a marriage, and the entry does not say it is.

Result: TWO CANDIDATES, BOTH IN OLD STILLWATER CEMETERY, Stillwater, Sussex Co.: "Emma Westbrook Cooper" 1867-1951 (64030979) and "Emma Auble Cooper" d. 3 Jan 1952 age 84 (19493880, gravesite note "Age 84 yrs; wife of ?"). The other two are excluded on age - Emma A. Orpen Cooper (1901-1997, Tranquility Cem.) and Emma L. De Groat Cooper (1909-1967, Deckertown Union). THE SURNAME ON THE STONE IS THE WHOLE POINT: a woman born about 1867 who is buried a COOPER in the county where Amos K. Cooper Amos Kennedy Cooper lived, when she was an AUBLE in the 1930 census. BOTH PANELS ARE EMPTY (related_people: []), so neither names a husband. Per the standing rule that is NOT evidence of absence.

Result: FOUND -> [D.827]. "Auble, William P", 66, Head, and "Emma O", 61, Wife-H, with son John G, 21, at dwelling 40 / family 42, Green Twp, Sussex Co., rented at $12 a month, enumerated 8 April 1930 by Mrs. Lola Kuykendall. Her age at first marriage: 21. THIS IS WHAT NAMED HER. The file had "Emma O." and an age and nothing else; it now has a maiden name (Westbrook), a first husband, a stepson, a county and a birth year corroborated across two censuses ten years apart.

Result: NULL for a second marriage. The only Amos K. Cooper in the collection is the 1887 one already held - "Amos K. Cooper x Rosa A. Whims, 15 Dec 1887, Stillwater, Sussex", his FIRST marriage to Rose Anna (Whyms) Cooper. No Amos Cooper marriage of 1935-1940 appears anywhere in it. NOT A CLEAN NULL, AND THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS: this collection is titled 1670-1965 but New Jersey marriage returns of the 1930s are frequently closed or thinly indexed, so an absence here is as likely to be a COVERAGE gap as a real one. Recorded as a coverage question. The New Jersey Marriage Index 1901-2016 is the collection to try next, and the bride should be searched as an AUBLE.