52 Ancestors Challenge Week 47: "Wrong Side of the Law" - Albert Gardner's Brush with the Law Solidifies Name Changing

Oh this was tricky topic for me to address. Oh so many to choose from. What's a girl to do? I've got quite a few in my family who have had a brush with the law.

When I started my genealogy research over 30 years ago, I began on my father's side of the family trying to unpuzzle for myself some of the modern day connections I did not quite understand. I stayed on that side of the family for a very long time. I did not truly dig into my mother's lineage until after my grandpa passed away in 2004; about 18 years ago. 

That was in part due to the fact my maternal grandmother passed away before I was born so I had almost no source of information for her branch of my tree and my maternal grandfather was very reluctant to speak about his family history. He would answer my questions but I had to be very specific about those questions. 

I recall one time I asked him if he had any uncles to which he replied, "Oh yeah, sure." 

Silence. 

"Um, do you remember their names?" 

"Yeah" 

Silence.

"What were their names?"

"Well, let's see. I had an Uncle Babe and an Uncle Blue-Eyes..."

"Grandpa, do you know the names your grandparents gave to your uncles?"

"Hmm. I'm not sure."

Another big obstacle in researching my maternal grandfather's branch of my tree has been the fact that there was a surname change. My Great-great-grandfather, Damas Desjardins, French-Canadian by birth, Anglicized his name to Thomas Gardner. I suspect this was in order to obtain more work and avoid ethnic discrimination. I cannot find anything official about the name change and back then, before Social Security, it was easier to assume an identity. Assuming an identity isn't always about evading the authorities.

In some records Damas appears as Damas Desjardins, in others as Thomas Gardner, in others as Damas Gardner, and still others as Thomas Desjardins. To make matters even more confusing, his offspring indiscriminately used either last name as well. His son, my great grandfather, Almond Desjardins, like his father also chose to use a more American sounding first name; Albert. Almond, a.k.a. Albert, was indeed born in the United States; his name just sounded very French.

This flip-flopping of names not only makes constructing searches more challenging,  it makes proving anything a daunting task. I often hear myself saying, "Well, yes, I know it says that but it is the same man." Anything I can find that helps me to solidify this family's surname change is precious to me.

This branch of the family has also had some run ins with the law in nearly every generation. Which brings me to an article from the Brooklyn Daily Star titled "Sing Sing for John Miller: L.I. City Man who Swindled Magnus Larsen Sent Up on Suspended Sentence - Five Others Given a Chance to Reform" from December 21, 1907. In it is mentioned Almond Gardner. The first time I have seen my great grandfather listed with his very French-sounding birth name and Anglicized surname. In addition to showing his name in that way, it also documents when the family moved from Queens to Patchogue, Suffolk County, NY. What a gem of a find!!

It reads as follows:

"Almond Gardner, a former Astoria boy whose folks now live at Patchogue, took a quantity of lead pipe and brass sewer traps from a house belonging to George B. Ruthman on Main street last November. He is only seventeen years old and has promised to behave."

Interestingly enough, 24 years later, Almond's baby brother, Damas Jr., who might have been Uncle Babe, is also arrested for burglarizing a house while in his teens. That time, though, the house was out in Patchoque and Damas Jr. stole an electric pump with his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Elbert King. I found that in a March 31, 1931 article in the Patchogue Advance titled "Young Men Arrested for Stealing Pump." Tsk, tsk, tsk. What is with these boys?

Had Almond not committed his juvenile crime, though, I might never have had such concrete proof that he was known by variations of the names Almond Desjardins and Albert Gardner. Additionally, I knew the family had moved to Patchoque between the 1900 and 1910 censuses. This article, though, helps me to narrow the date of the family's move to after November 1906, when the crime was committed, and before December 1907, when the article was written.

Run-ins with the law result in documentation of the on-goings of a family. It's not all bad.