Family Tree - "FAMILY LORE"

Happy New Year - my thoughts for this year is to be healthier, break down some brickwalls and knit MORE, learning new skills along the way.........

FAMILY LORE ........   At the time I took over as family historian from my father in 1999, my father had been told (who told him???) that our GARDNER name had been changed before leaving Scotland.(WH? WHO?) My father, John P Gardner Jr., believed that the original name in Scotland was RAMSEY.(WHY?)  At this time in my life, I was leaving California for Pennsylavania with my husband.  McClellan Air Force Base had been closed, and he was offered work at Tobyhanna Army Depot in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. We took it and looked upon it as an adventure for the under 5 years that he had left till retirement. YIPPPPPEY! and it was an adventure. Unfortunately, most all the relatives (living and passed) living in PA.NY, CT, OH were on my mothers side LITTLE's so I did not have anyone to ask about the GARDNER/RAMSEY question except for my dad. Now of course my father passed (2006) and I have no one to talk too about this question. Just like anything else, why didn't I talk to my father about it more, WHY? ...... just too many other things happening and it got put way back on the burner.

I am not really sure where to begin........ and begin with what? where? 

So I guess it would be somewhere before 1825. Why 1825? Well that is where I estimated George Gardner was born. Yes George Gardner is my fathers geat grandfather..... he was the first on this line to come to America around 1863-64. Yep, you're right, I have found very little about his life in America and have not been able to identify him in Scotland either. 

I believe he was born in Lesmahagow pt, Lanark, Lanarkshire, Scotland, but have not been able to confirm it yet.

He married a woman named Jane Smith in Scotland about 1862

Their first child, a son Harry, was also born in Scotland about 1863

And I believe they arrived in America around 1864 and lived in Ohio...  but no paper work yet. NOTHING.

I have not located them in the 1870USCensus, but they show up in the 1880USCensus. George is not listed, but she is listed with another man and four more children. So did George die, or just leave? What happened to him. Four of the five children on the census carried the GARDNER name ....  what happened to them? Where are they? Why can't I find them? The last child on this census is a infant female born to the new husband and Jane. Found her birth information and then NOTHING again. 

I looked for names that might be duplicated from the father or the mothers side and found NOTHING. Although I did find the first name George used several times BUT not Ramsey or anything close.

So far, nothing in my current research suggests that there was a name change prior to coming to America. Maybe that is why I can not find him .....  maybe, maybe not? But then again, I have found almost nothing about this man in Scotland or in Amcrica. Maybe I will need to do a deeper search on "Scotland's People." But with such common names, it is like looking for that needle in the haystake. Someday, someday I might find that ellusive information. 

GEORGE GARDNER seems to be a ghost at this point......... for as many years as I have been working on this, I have not gotten any closer to finding this ancestor AND finding out where this RAMSEY name came from that my dad has clung onto. He left me NO clues. 

I would appreciate any hints, tips, or clues that could get this research going in the right direction. 

Thank you