Lorenzo Calkin lineage

A significant discovery on my CALKIN family genealogy! My GGG Grandfather was Lorenzo CALKIN who resided in Pavilion Twp., Kalamazoo County, Michigan. For many decades I have had a death date for him of 27 Nov 1900 (from family records) or 27 Nov 1899 (from tombstone). With the online death certificates on SeekingMichigan.com I was determined to find his record but failed many times. Finally I located it with incorrect metadata indicating his first name as Lauran. BINGO! its him. The names of his parents have been nearly impossible to locate so I was lucky to find his death certificate. For decades I have known from 1850 census records that his father's first initial was "A" and nothing else. Over the last year I was able to determine that an Albert CALKINS or Elbert CALKIN or Ebert CALKIN was an early resident of Pavilion. Thus, I was pretty sure that some variation of that name was probably Lorenzo's dad. Through google searches I was able to locate a marriage record for a Elbert CALKIN and Elsa WOLCOTT in Elba, New York. To my surprise there were many WOLCOTT's who pioneered Pavilion Twp. as well. So, I figured I was on the right track. Fueling this speculation was the fact that Lorenzo named one of his son's Elbert and a daughter Elsa. Probably no coincidence. Locating the death certificate confirmed my hunch. Yes, his parents are listed--"Albert CALKIN" and "Elsa WOLCOTT." This openned up a flood gate of genealical information published on the WOLCOTT, DUNHAM, MERRILL and WEBSTER surnames for me. The lesson learned here is "Patience!"

Another favorite website of mine is findagrave.com. Here is where I located the grave site of Lorenzo's brother Asahel Dunham CALKIN in Iowa. Now I need to work on the CALKIN lines a bit harder!

Cheers!