George Albert Baker strikes again

Was loading more information about George Albert Baker's family into a genealogy program on familysearch, and noticed a lady with a similar name to George's mother. I did a bit of tracking and experienced a very cool ending. I try to confirm anything I find by at least 2 sources. Sometimes it's not possible but I try.
     George's mothers name was giving me a run around. She is listed on the headstone as Kate Winifred, so I went looking for Kate Winifred Baker in the NZ Births/Deaths/Marriages (BDM) I used George's dads name to find the marriage information, which helped me find her maiden name of Maxwell. I then took a stab in the dark and hoped she'd been born in NZ and I came across a Catherine Winifred Maxwell. This info looked interesting, as Kate could be short for Catherine. I'm busy building up a family tree for this person, and thinking I was doing really well, but when I went to load this info into familysearh a notice came up for a duplicate person. I was thinking I would ignore it, but decided to email the guy who had put the info into the system in July 2012 and hold off till I heard back from him.
     I received a very nice email back telling me that my information and his was the same person.
It turned out that Kate Baker, was the eldest daughter of Patrick Maxwell. Daniel the guy who emailed me had no information at all on her as his line was from one of the younger children in the family. He recalled that  his mum had met Kate and her husband and they were both horse crazy. The family didn't know what had become of them, and as they had lost touch, it meant they had hit a brick wall.
In my reply I attached all the information I had on the Baker family and sent it off to him. Daniels reply was to say his mum (who was still alive) would be over the moon to read what I'd found and I had enabled them to fill in a large chunk of missing family.
     It's the coolest feeling to connect the dots for people. And not long after I blogged about my trip to Morrinsville to find George, I received a post from a lady who's grandmother used to work on the farm for JP Baker (Jack) she would go there as a kid for holidays. She was also helpful.  I can't help smile when things like this happen. Sheesh I'm smiling just because I'm thinking about it now.


An image of JP Baker receiving the 1965 NZ Trotting Cup.
Lofty Shaw, JP Baker, Gary Dillon & driver Peter Wolfenden.

Garry Dillon was raced on lease by E B S Grey and J H Shaw from his Southland breeder Mrs E M Kirk. In a post race interview his trainer, J P Baker of Morrinsville, related how the flight that Garry Dillon was booked to come down on was cancelled and the horse had to endure a trying 600 mile (960k) float trip which saw him arrive the Friday before the Cup. 

www.addington.co.nz
Credit: Colin Steele