Can you read a county name in the 1855 New York Census?

Question

William Benson and his wife Clarissa Kelsey with their children are living in Maine, Broome Co. New York in 1855.  The census shows the place of birth for each person, either a New York county or a state.  William was born in Lewis Co., the children were born in Chenango and Broome, but what is the county name for Clarissa?  While it looks like it might be Conn, it does not seem like it can be Connecticut, there are a number of other individuals on the page with the same name and in 1850 she is listed as having been born in NY, in 1900 her daughter, Susan, stated her mother was born in NY.

This is the record at Family Search.

New York State Census, 1855

Thank you

Answer 1

It really does look like Conn. to me.  I downloaded the image and flipped it to negative, and it's still Conn.

Answer 2

It looks like Conn to me also. I looked in my Handy Book for Genealogists and didn't see any counties that it looked like. It looks like a con job to me.

Answer 3

EDIT: It's Broome.  Look at other pages of the census.

My mistake, I was looking at the wrong person.  Looking at the ancestry.com copy, I agree it is Conn.

Answer 4

I agree that it is Broome county. I downloaded the image from Ancestry, which was slightly clearer, and I have no doubt it.

Answer 5

On both ancestry and familysearch --

1) The first letter is exactly the same as the C in Chenango in the next two lines.

2) It looks nothing at all like the Broome listed for Isaac and Juliet.

Answer 6

I would guess it stands for Connecticut, as another entry on the page has Mass - likely being Massachusetts.

Answer 7

Thank you to all those that worked on this, I was beginning to think I had lost my eyesight.

I now am confident that the answer is Connecticut.  Clarissa is in the 1880 and more importantly in the 1910 census where she is living alone as a widow and reports that she was born in Connecticut.  1880 also shows Connecticut.

Interestingly in 1865 she is reported as having been born in Otsego Co., NY.  So my  interpretation is that she was born in Connecticut and at a very young age moved to New York, possibly Otsego County.  

Here is her profile.  Clarissa (Kelsey) Benson (abt. 1822 - 1911)

I did not find the 1900 census.  She would have been a widow, don't know where she would have been living.

Answer 8

It does look like this census record contains "Conn" for Connecticut.  But I would tend to believe she was born in New York based on the other evidence.

Also, the census indicates they only lived in this town for 1 year.

Answer 9

It's a long shot, but here is a potential 1900 census record that could be her. It's in Oswego County, so it's conceivable that after her husband's death, she moved back in with her sister (again, presuming that this is her sister in the census).

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSL4-BCC : accessed 23 May 2016), Clorinda Benson in household of Frank H Harwood, Granby Township Oswego Falls village, Oswego, New York, United States; citing sheet 2B, family 48, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,241,143.

Answer 10

Did you see the offer by Kent Miller to do physical research in the very same areas?  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Miller-27926  dated May 18th