The Augusta marriage and White guardianship

John and Elizabeth married on 13 December 1824 in Augusta County, Virginia. A guardianship-bond transcription dated 22 November 1824 names Elizabeth as an orphan of William White, deceased, with John McCue as guardian. Jefferson Kinney also appears among the signers. The bond establishes that William had died by November 1824; it does not date his death to that year.

The precise Augusta volume and image references need to be recovered from the original records. The Amherst Guthrie guardianship and Wingfield estate references belong to different events and should not be used as citations for Elizabeth White’s guardianship.

A retained abstract of a William White will dated 6 September 1817 and recorded in 1818, cited as Will Book 6, p. 311, names a brother Henry White of New Orleans and provides for the emancipation of Charlotte and her daughter Celey. The testator has not been securely identified as Elizabeth’s father. This remains a separate identity question, not evidence of her inheritance or her mother’s name.

The Guthrie family connection

John’s place among the children of William Guthrie and Elizabeth Wingfield is presented at the Branch G Family Hub. The tested paternal line through George Wyatt Guthrie carries the GFG1A modal Y-DNA, with matching Augusta County, Virginia locations. This corrects the family’s former GFG2A placement. The nearby John Gilkeson Guthrie–Adeline Barclay Paxton household belongs to a distinct Guthrie family.

Missouri and John’s death

The family memorial records John’s death in 1852, aged fifty. George Wyatt’s 1854 marriage return describes his parents as John and Elizabeth Guthrie of Missouri. That wording preserves a significant geographic connection without establishing that both parents were alive in 1854 or identifying John’s death place. Elizabeth appears in Augusta County again in 1860.

John William Guthrie in the Guthrie Research Tree brings together the working reconstruction and its record leads.

1820 — Staunton, Augusta County. The retained research identifies a John Guthrie, aged sixteen to twenty-five, as a teacher. He is a possible earlier identification of this John, not a confirmed match solely on name and locality.

1850 — District 2, Augusta County. The household extraction lists John, 50, farmer; Elizabeth, 44; Catharine, 22; Emily J., 18; Elizabeth, 16; James, 13; Cornelia, 11; Sarah, 9; Amanda, 7; Samuel C., 4; and Jane Frazer, 80. All are reported as born in Virginia. Jane’s presence does not by itself establish her precise relationship to Elizabeth.

1860 — North Subdivision, Augusta County; Burke’s Mill post office. The retained extraction lists Elizabeth, 52, with personal estate valued at $100; Elizabeth M., 22; James C., 21; Susan C., 18; Amanda L., 13; Samuel C., 12; and Sarah O., whose age is not supplied in that extraction. “James C.” is preserved as the extracted name for comparison with James Hamilton’s other records.

Later households. The South River, Augusta County; Mead, Belmont County, Ohio; and Trenton, New Jersey, entries follow the children into their own families and relatives’ homes. The Trenton Guthrie children appear under the Copeland surname in the 1870 extraction. Household surnames and reported ages must be compared across records before combining people or assigning relationships.

The Guthrie memorial card

Supplied transcription of a family memento; the original card and its provenance should accompany any future revision.

In Fond Remembrance Of
My Dear Ones.

JOHN GUTHRIE,
Died in 1852; Aged 50 Years
ELIZABETH GUTHRIE,
Died December 17, 1863; Aged 59 Years.
JOHN W. GUTHRIE
Died January 16, 1862; Aged 30 Years.
James H. Guthrie,
Died October 15, 1861; Aged 24 Years.
SAMUEL C Guthrie,
Died 12 Dec 1886; Aged 39 Years

Entries attributed to the Hall family Bible

The retained source is an Ancestry media item. The following reproduces the supplied transcription; the original pages have not been independently reread for this block.

In memory of James Hamilton Guthrie who died in the service of his country Oct 16th 1861 in the 24th year of his age.

John Wingfield Guthrie departed this life January 14th 1862 in the 32 year of his age.

Sacred to the memory of Elizabeth L Guthrie who departed this life December 18th 1863 in the 58th year of her age.

The Bible transcription and memorial card differ in both dates and ages. John Wingfield’s and Elizabeth’s newspaper notices supply further comparisons. James’s military file introduces a September date as well as October references.

George’s reported birth is 25 April 1826. The retained marriage and death research identifies his parents as John William Guthrie and Elizabeth White. Laurence R. Guthrie’s American Guthrie and Allied Families, p. 60, instead associated him with Haley Guthrie and Fanny of the GFG2A family. The GFG1A Y-DNA result corrects that placement.

Marriage: the transcribed minister’s return records George, twenty-seven, and Cornelia Grass, twenty-five, marrying on 14 March 1854 at the home of Rev. B. M. Smith in Staunton. It identifies George as an Augusta-born farmer and son of John and Elizabeth Guthrie of Missouri. Cornelia’s parents are William and Nancy Grass, deceased. An affidavit concerning her age is dated 13 March; the minister certified the return on 17 April.

Work and service: George was a railroad section master in 1860 and 1870 and a carpenter in 1880. The retained military research records his enlistment as a sergeant in Company H, 5th Virginia Infantry, Confederate service, on 19 April 1861, and discharge on 24 July 1862. The service-file link is retained for comparison with the original cards. A retrospective “Augusta Rifles” article, cited to the Staunton Spectator, 7 September 1900, p. 1, also belongs with this research.

John William Guthrie & Willie Fontaine Dawson

Their elder son, John William Guthrie (1855–1930), trained as a blacksmith and later operated a shop at Fishersville. He married Willie Fontaine Dawson on 27 September 1882. The family reconstruction names seven children: Katherine Lee, Wyatt Dawson, Charles Donald, Claude Wingfield, Mary M., John Richard, and Kent Fontaine. This is the son’s family through which the recorded Y-DNA and autosomal participation continues.

Charles Wingfield Guthrie & Agness LaZetta Harris

Charles Wingfield Guthrie (born about 1858–1859; died 1909) became a cashier for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway. He married Agness LaZetta Harris about 1891. The family reconstruction names Cecil Russel, Merle Cornelia, Clyde Wingfield, and Eugene Field. His obituary reports three surviving children; the two statements should be compared as birth and survival counts.

Kate’s childhood census age suggests a birth about 1828. She appears with relatives in several households and worked as a seamstress. She was unmarried in the assembled records, with no identified children. Her death notice places her at the home of her brother-in-law Charles W. Kidwell and describes a long period of disability.

John, a farm laborer, married Marietta Rankin, daughter of David and Jane Rankin, on 16 September 1855. The retained 1860 household lists John, twenty-nine; Marietta, twenty; son John, four; and Elizabeth J., one. His obituary gives his death as 14 January 1862, near Rankin’s Church, with a widow and two surviving children.

Marietta married William Copeland, an English-born potter, on 18 February 1866. Their 1870 Trenton household lists the children John, Eliza J., and William under the Copeland surname, along with younger Copeland children. Later records establish separate adult identities for John W. Guthrie and William Guthrie.

John W. Guthrie & Louisa Keating

The younger John was born about 1856–1857. His exact birth date and expanded middle name remain unsettled. He married Louisa Keating on 6 May 1875. The family reconstruction names John, William Keating, Marietta, Lillie, and George; Marietta reportedly died in childhood. His 1911 obituary names four survivors and identifies his municipal employment.

An online reconstruction also gives an unnamed infant a birth and death on 5 August 1856. The original birth or burial record is needed before treating that entry as a separate child or proposing twins.

Elizabeth Jane Guthrie

Elizabeth Jane, born about 1859, appears in the retained 1860 and 1870 households. Her later marriage, death, and possible descendants remain unidentified. Absence from the next household extraction does not resolve her fate.

William Guthrie & Carolina Randon

William, born about 1862, married Carolina Randon on 7 October 1882; one marriage transcription renders his name “Wm J Guthroe.” He worked as a potter in Trenton. Marietta’s 1916 notice expressly calls him her son. His exact birth date must be established before describing him as a posthumous child of John Wingfield.

The compiled child list names Anna M., John Winfield, Frank Ian, Minnie, Florence Irene, Estelle M., Caroline E., and Thomas Theodore. The obituary instead includes a son Joseph. Compare the children’s individual records and the daughters’ married names before changing the family count or merging identities.

Emily married James Calvin Hall on 31 March 1854. Their children were Bettie Belle, George Edward, and Florence Fay Hall. In the retained 1860 census, James was a millwright; Bettie was four and George three.

The Hall marriage and wartime research

The retained research describes James’s Confederate service, capture at Gettysburg on 3 July 1863, confinement at Fort Delaware, and subsequent enlistment in the U.S. Army. It places his discharge in July 1865 and a marriage to Louisa J. Funkhouser in Vigo County, Indiana, on 11 January 1866. These details should be compared with the complete service, prisoner, and marriage records.

Emily’s 1868 divorce proceedings are described in the research as alleging adultery, bigamy, and abandonment, with a notice published in the Valley Virginian. The complete chancery file and decree are the sources needed for the court’s findings. A separate research note links James to a register of witnesses in the 1865 Lincoln assassination conspiracy proceedings; the actual entry should be retrieved before that connection is expanded.

The Hall children

• Bettie Belle Hall (born about 1856–1857; died 1923) married Albert Dickinson Lane in Staunton on 30 August 1881. They lived in Roanoke and had sons John Calvin and Oliver Guthrie Lane. Albert worked as a railroad engineer. Lizzie’s notice names a niece, Mrs. A. L. Lane; its initials should be compared with the Lane family’s records.
• George Edward Hall (1857–1927) married Maggie Mitchell Luck on 27 April 1881. Their children were Edward C., Robert Earl, and Ethel May. George’s employment included work at the Western Lunatic Asylum, the institution’s historical name, and later railroad work as a yardmaster. The family subsequently lived in Charlottesville.
• Florence Fay Hall (1863–1895) remained unmarried in the assembled research. Her reported death was 28 August 1895 at her mother’s West End home; burial is recorded at Thornrose.

Birth-date conflict: the compiled dates of 6 July 1857 for Bettie and 14 October 1857 for George cannot both be correct for separate births to the same mother. The 1860 ages support an earlier birth for Bettie, but her exact date requires an original record.

The Kidwell family

Emily married Charles W. Kidwell on 30 June 1868. His reported occupations included policeman, steam fitter, and caretaker at Baldwin Seminary. Their son James Hamilton Kidwell (1870–1958) married his first cousin Cornelia Guthrie “Nelle” Lashley in 1893. The couple had five children and later lived in Staunton, where James worked as an engineer in a machine shop.

Emily died on 12 March 1913; Charles survived until 1927. The Kidwell home is named in Kate’s and Sallie’s death notices and Lizzie’s funeral account, preserving its place in the extended family’s history.

Lizzie’s early census ages suggest birth about 1834–1835. She was unmarried in the assembled research and worked as a milliner while associated with Cornelia’s family in Ohio. Her death occurred while visiting a niece in Roanoke. The accounts give conflicting years, 1893 and 1894, and the full newspaper issue is needed to resolve them.

James was thirteen in the 1850 household, supporting birth about 1837. The retained military research identifies him as twenty-four when he enlisted in Company H, 5th Virginia Infantry, Confederate service, on 19 April 1861.

The research describes admission to the Confederate general hospital at Charlottesville on 10 September with typhoid fever and death on 15 September 1861. An October date appears in a claim associated with his mother. The memorial card gives 15 October, while the supplied Bible transcription gives 16 October.

These differences require comparison of the complete military file, hospital return, claim papers, and original family entries. A casualty list is cited to the Staunton Spectator, 4 November 1862. No spouse or child has been identified.

Cornelia’s childhood census age places her birth about 1839–1840. She married John William Detter on 18 January 1866 in Fishersville; a marriage transcription renders the surname Decker. John worked as a railroad engineer and later a carpenter. The family appears in Belmont County, Ohio, in 1870 and 1880.

Cornelia’s reported death is 1902, with burial at Dunfee Cemetery in Shadyside. Later research places John with a wife Jennie, identified as Jennie Skillman, in West Virginia. Their marriage and John’s death should be verified independently of the later census entries.

Jessie May Detter

Jessie May (1875–1947) first married John Turner Israel and had a son, Roy Marion, in 1893. She later married Robert Bruce Caplinger in 1897, and Roy used his stepfather’s surname. The retained reconstruction credits Jessie with a large Caplinger family and follows them through Randolph County, West Virginia, including Elkins. Jessie died on 4 July 1947.

Who was Roy in the Detter household?

A six-year-old Roy, born in West Virginia in 1893, appears in the retained 1900 Detter household extraction. The same birth year appears for Jessie’s son Roy. His relationship to the household must be checked against the original census and later records before he is listed as Cornelia’s son. The reported total of five Detter children also requires reconciliation with the original children-born and children-living columns.

Sallie’s age of nine in 1850 supports birth about 1841. Later ages differ. She worked as a seamstress and was recorded with Emily’s family in Virginia and Amanda’s family in Ohio. No spouse or child is identified.

The family death list gives 17 August 1899. The notice published the following week records her funeral and burial at Thornrose, without naming the exact death day.

Amanda’s earliest census age suggests birth about 1843. She married widower George W. Lashley on 10 December 1873 in St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio. His first wife, Elizabeth Johnston, had died that August. Their children Johnson Rector, Joseph A., and Anna Mariah became Amanda’s stepchildren.

Amanda and George’s daughter was Cornelia Guthrie “Nelle” Lashley (1874–1962). The 1880 household in Mead also included Amanda’s sisters Kate and Sallie. A reported second-cousin relationship between Amanda and George remains a genealogical lead requiring its own connecting records.

Amanda’s family death record gives 5 March 1896, without a place; another summary gives 1898. George later lived in Pennsylvania and married Mary Emma Wilson Dengler. The retained research gives his death as 3 May 1916 in Erie. An “adopted daughter,” Edna Odelle, appears in later census research; her parentage and placement should not be assigned to Amanda without supporting records.

Nelle and James Hamilton Kidwell

Nelle married Emily’s son James Hamilton Kidwell in 1893 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Their five-child family connects these two Guthrie sisters’ lines. The household later returned to Virginia, settling in Staunton.

Lashley newspaper research

The retained newspaper leads include a Pittsburgh Press equity-case report dated 6 May 1901, a mistaken-arrest story dated 13 August 1907, and a legal notice captioned 29 May 1908. These are legal and biographical sources, not obituary notices. Complete issues and the underlying case records would allow a fuller assessment of George’s later life.

Samuel’s census and memorial ages suggest birth about 1846–1848. He married Sallie Louisa Warren, daughter of Martin Washington and Hannah Rose Warren, on 25 February 1875 in Belmont County, Ohio.

The family memorial gives his death as 12 December 1886, aged thirty-nine. Ohio is a research lead for the death, not an established location from the memorial itself. No child of Samuel and Sallie has been securely identified.

Sallie married John Robert Rush in Ringgold County, Iowa, on 6 November 1888. The retained 1900 census summary reports three children born and one living; that total does not identify which marriage produced them. Her reported death is 8 October 1907. Birth records, her marriages, and the Rush household should be compared before assigning a child to Samuel.