Researching Christie Calder and Joseph Lake

The most practical place to start the research story from my perspective is kind of in the middle and work out from there, the work on the Calder Family Group has been some of the most challenging that I have seen. The abundant name changes (see link entitled “Name Scrabble” at the bottom of the page.) and the lack of records has made this work very slow going indeed. In recent years material has been more available on line, networking resources such as email and message boards, and now social networks are providing information at an ever faster rate. Some days it isn’t fast enough and anyone how has pounded their head against the "brick walls" of genealogical research know exactly what I mean.

So let us begin Christie Calder came from Scotland at the age of about 3 she lived the majority of her life in Jefferson County New York married Joseph J. Lake.

The issue, in this line of research was the only information to follow up on was an interview conducted with Christie's grandson Robert L. Lake b. 1902. During that interview he identified his grandmother as Christie Ann Calder, that she was born in Scotland about 1840; and arrived in “this country” when she was of about 3. The problem became that no one had any records of her, she wasn’t listed in the Natural Bridge records, there had been fires that destroyed allot of information in the surrounding area. The genealogical library in Watertown, NY had no record of that were helpful in any of their rather large holdings. It wasn’t until we were able to access the LDS 1880 census records and found that Christie had changed her name to Ann, then the information started to flow like water.

With the ability, provided by Ancestry.com to search census records and other vital record I was able to locate Ann Calder age 19 in the 1860 census, in the home of Morris G. and Orrissa Jane Smith of Gouverneur, St. Lawrence Co., New York. In and of itself finding a 19 year old Calder female in Gouverneur NY is not that exciting, but when you combine that with the fact that Orrissa Jane Smith’s maiden name was LAKE and her brother was Joseph J. Lake then things get a bit more interesting. Between 1860 and 1863 Christie and Joseph are married their first child Harvey Jesse is born, before the census of 1870 two more child Lavinia and Lottie are born.
The census of 1870 and 1880 the information is somewhat mundane nothing more than what would be expect, Christie remains identified by her middle name. There were three important things about the 1870 census as they apply to the Calder family; three of Christie’s sisters make their first appearance in the census documents.

We will continue on next time …………………

http://sdlgenresearch.blogspot.com/2008/07/name-scrabble.html (Name Scabble)