Adam Guthrie and Mary Anderson represent a family with early Irish origins and a migration path through the changing jurisdictions of the southern backcountry before the family settled in Kentucky.

Adam appears in records associated with the short-lived State of Franklin and later received a 1793 land grant along the French Broad River in old Greene County, North Carolina, now part of Tennessee. By the early nineteenth century, members of the family were settling in the Cumberland County, Kentucky area.

The original Family Focus investigation examined documentary evidence, competing origin theories, autosomal-DNA matches, and several same-name Adam Guthries who have sometimes been confused with this man.

The most important development came after the original article: Y-DNA testing has now established this family as Guthrie Family Group 7. The article remains in Family Focus as a record of the research process that preceded that genetic identification.

Alexander Guthrie was born in Scotland in 1791 and later established his family in New Brunswick, Canada with his wife, Susannah Tatton.

This lineage remains part of the Family Focus collection because its paternal Guthrie origins have not yet been genetically tied to one of the established Guthrie Family Groups.

A qualifying direct-line male Guthrie descendant could provide the Y-DNA evidence needed to determine whether this family shares paternal ancestry with one of the known groups or represents a genetically distinct Guthrie lineage. The family currently remains Ungrouped · Y-DNA Needed.

Beverly Guthrie married Sarah Colquitt on 17 December 1793 in Virginia. Their known children include Nancy S., Martha “Patsy,” Elizabeth “Betsy” Jane, and Nehemiah Guthrie.

The family moved from Virginia into Georgia, where Beverly appears in association with Oglethorpe County. Descendant research includes autosomal DNA participants through several branches of the family.

The lineage still lacks the direct paternal-line Y-DNA result needed to determine Beverly Guthrie’s place among the established Guthrie Family Groups.

A qualifying male Guthrie descended through Beverly’s son Nehemiah Guthrie would be especially valuable for resolving the paternal-line question.

Frederick Guthrie stated in his Revolutionary War pension application that he was born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, in 1763. He was living in Rutherford County during his military service and later settled in Spartanburg District, South Carolina.

Frederick married Mary “Mollie” Louallen about 1788. Their large family became associated with the Thicketty Creek area of South Carolina, with later descendants spreading into Arkansas, Texas, and other parts of the South and West.

The central research problem is Frederick’s paternal Guthrie origin. Records from the Thicketty Creek neighborhood place him among several other Guthrie or Guttry families, including Matthew and Shadrick, but the exact relationships among these men have not been proved by documentary evidence.

Autosomal DNA results have supplied useful clues, including matches involving descendants of other Guthrie families in the region, but they have not established Frederick’s direct paternal-line identity. A Y-DNA test from a qualifying direct-line male Guthrie descendant is still needed to determine whether this family belongs to one of the established Guthrie Family Groups.

Helen Guthrie and Robert Makemie appear in many online family trees as the parents of Reverend Francis Makemie and his siblings, with the family usually associated with Ramelton, County Donegal, Ireland and later Accomack County, Virginia.

The documentary evidence is far less certain. No marriage record has been identified for Helen and Robert, no record has been found proving that Helen was the mother of the Makemie children, and Helen’s own birth, parentage, residence, and death remain unverified.

One major source of confusion is a different documented couple: Robert McKimm and Helen Guthrie of Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, who married there in 1697. Their dates are far too late for them to be the parents of Reverend Francis Makemie, yet their names have been repeatedly incorporated into online Makemie pedigrees.

Reverend Francis Makemie’s 1708 will identifies siblings John, Robert, and Anne, but does not name his parents. Surviving records likewise do not establish that his mother was a Guthrie. The supposed Guthrie connection therefore remains a research question rather than a documented relationship.

Because Helen is a proposed female Guthrie ancestor with no proven paternal Guthrie lineage, there is no direct male Guthrie line available for conventional Y-DNA testing. Autosomal DNA may offer clues, but the number of generations involved makes documentary evidence especially important.

John Guthrie and Margaret Brown belong to a Pennsylvania family whose genealogy has been complicated by several overlapping identities and similarly named relatives.

Margaret Brown, daughter of Robert Brown, is identified as the wife of John Guthrie, rather than James Guthrie, as sometimes shown in derivative pedigrees. Their children are identified as Mary Guthrie, William Brown Guthrie, and Robert Guthrie.

The family has also been affected by confusion over John’s residence and military service, along with uncertainty surrounding the placement of son Robert D. Guthrie. These issues are examined in the Family Focus study as part of the effort to separate this branch from neighboring Guthrie lines.

Current research infers that this family belongs to Guthrie Family Group 2A, Branch B, but the lineage still lacks the direct Y-DNA confirmation needed to make that placement genetically secure.

John Guthrie was a farmer associated with Snow Hill in Worcester County, Maryland. He married three times: Betsy Nelson in 1817, Piercey Wilson in 1833, and later Ann, whose maiden name remains unidentified.

Documentary research brought several formerly separate Worcester County Guthrie lineages together under John’s family. Apprenticeship, marriage, census, and other records helped identify children from his successive marriages and clarify relationships that had previously been treated as distinct branches.

Y-DNA testing then supplied the genetic evidence needed to place the family in Guthrie Family Group 1A. Descendants of more than one branch of John’s family share distinctive inherited markers, providing additional support for their common paternal origin.

The resulting reconstruction transformed this Family Focus from an ungrouped research problem into a genetically supported family branch. John’s own parents, however, remain unidentified.

Margaret Guthrie of Lunan married Sir Robert Carnegie of Kinnaird by 1527 and became the matriarch of an important Carnegie family. Later records identify her as Dame Margaret Guthre, Lady of Kinnaird.

Margaret is securely associated with the Guthries of Lunan, but no contemporary record currently names either of her parents. The documented Lunan leaseholders—Robert Guthrie in 1496, James Guthrie in 1512, and John Guthrie in 1526—provide valuable family context, but none can yet be identified as her father with documentary certainty.

Older pedigrees and online trees have sometimes assigned Margaret to the Guthries of Hiltoun or to the main Guthries of Guthrie. The surviving records do not support those placements. Her parentage therefore remains an open research question rather than a proven extension of either pedigree.

This is also a case where genetic genealogy has limited reach. More than five centuries separate Margaret from living descendants, making autosomal DNA far less useful for proving her ancestry. Progress is more likely to come from charters, marriage contracts, sasines, testaments, Carnegie family papers, or other contemporary records that explicitly identify her father or parents.

Margaret’s original testament provides an important chronological correction. It was made in April 1575, placing her death later that month rather than in 1571 as stated in some later published accounts.

Peter Guthrie was a Scottish-born merchant mariner who reportedly came from Paisley, Renfrewshire and reached Grenada by the late eighteenth century. He became a shipmaster, West India merchant, property holder, militia officer, and active participant in the commercial life of St. George’s.

His principal partner was Anne Thoy, mother of most of his known children. No marriage record has been identified, and Grenadian records continued to describe her separately as Anne or Ann Thoy, suggesting that their relationship may not have been formally recorded as a legal marriage.

Peter and Anne had a large family whose children included Agnes, David Robert, Peter, Anne, James, John, another Anne, and Ellen Jane Guthrie. Peter also fathered children by Leah Gibbs and Mary Ann Gilling.

The surviving record trail places Peter firmly in Grenada but leaves his Scottish parentage unresolved. A particularly intriguing clue is an 1899 newspaper inquiry seeking the names of the parents of Peter Guthrie, a native of Paisley who emigrated to Grenada about 1789.

Because Peter had several sons, this family remains a strong candidate for Y-DNA research. A qualifying direct paternal-line Guthrie descendant could determine whether Peter belongs to one of the established Guthrie Family Groups and may help narrow the search for his Scottish origins.

Robert Guthrie was among the early settlers associated with Block Island, Rhode Island. His origins are traditionally placed in Scotland, although his exact birthplace and parentage remain unidentified.

Robert was first married to Margaret Ireland, with no known children from that marriage. On 5 June 1689 he married Anna Alcock, widow of John Williams. Robert and Anna had one known daughter, Catherine Guthrie, born in 1690.

Catherine married John Sands, and the surviving descendant lines therefore continue through the Sands family rather than through a male Guthrie surname line.

That makes this family especially difficult to place genetically. There is no known direct paternal-line male Guthrie descendant available for Y-DNA testing, while the seventeenth-century generation is generally too distant for autosomal DNA alone to establish Robert’s Guthrie origins securely.

Several theories have been proposed for Robert’s arrival in New England, including possible association with Scottish prisoners transported after the Cromwellian campaigns. Those possibilities remain research leads rather than proven details of his biography.

Robert Guthrie married Elizabeth Jane Caldwell in Pennsylvania on 4 May 1778. The couple raised a large family and later moved west from Washington County, Pennsylvania to Harrison County, Ohio.

Earlier genealogies placed Robert in a hypothetical family associated with Guthrie Family Group 2A, sometimes identifying James Guthrie and an unidentified “Miss Bissell” as his parents.

Y-DNA testing changed that interpretation. Direct paternal-line descendants of Robert share the same Guthrie Y-DNA profile with one another, but that profile does not match GFG2A or any other previously established Guthrie Family Group.

The lineage is now designated Guthrie Family Group 2C. The genetic evidence confirms Robert as the common paternal ancestor of the tested descendants while leaving his own biological parentage unresolved.

This family is therefore an excellent example of why Family Focus entries remain useful even after a genetic assignment is made: Y-DNA solved the question of group identity, but it also disproved the expected placement and opened a new research question about Robert’s earlier ancestry.

Dr Samuel Guthrie Jr was the son of Dr Samuel Guthrie Sr and Sarah, whose maiden name remains undocumented. He married Sybil Sexton in 1804 in Smyrna, New York. Their children were Alfred, Edwin B., Harriet, and Cynthia Guthrie.

Samuel followed his father into medicine, first learning through practical study and later attending medical lectures in New York City and Pennsylvania. His unusually broad interests also made him a chemist, distiller, manufacturer, cultivator, and inventor.

During the War of 1812 he served as an examining surgeon for the United States Army. The family later settled near Sackets Harbor, where he established a laboratory, distillery, vinegar works, and powder mill.

Guthrie is remembered as one of the independent early discoverers of chloroform. His experiments in 1831 produced the substance while he was attempting to improve the manufacture of chloric ether. His other work included improvements connected with percussion ignition and the conversion of potato starch into sugar and molasses.

Genealogically, Samuel’s lineage belongs to Guthrie Family Group 2A, Branch F. The Family Focus article also examines the older family traditions surrounding the Connecticut Guthries and the parts of that early pedigree that remain dependent on tradition or later reconstruction.

Thomas Y. Guthrie was the progenitor of a southern farming family whose early history remains difficult to reconstruct. Census records usually place his birth in Tennessee, although one later census gives Mississippi, and the identities of his parents have not been established.

His first wife is identified in family trees as Elizabeth Luttrell, but no marriage record or contemporary document naming her has yet been located. Thomas later married Emeline Markham, probably about 1849.

Thomas and his two wives had a large family, including numerous sons who potentially created surviving direct paternal Guthrie lines. Despite that opportunity, no qualifying Y-DNA participant currently represents the family.

Online trees have proposed connections to both Guthrie Family Group 9 and Guthrie Family Group 13. Those two groups are genetically unrelated on their Guthrie paternal lines, and no documentary evidence presently connects Thomas securely to either one.

Even Thomas’s middle name remains uncertain. Records support the middle initial Y, but the expanded form “Yoner” has not been independently documented and appears to have developed from later interpretations of the surviving records.

Thomas was living in Madison County, Alabama by the mid-nineteenth century. He and Emeline mortgaged property there in May 1875, and Thomas died sometime before the 1880 census.

A Y-DNA test from a direct paternal-line male Guthrie descendant remains the clearest route toward determining whether this family belongs to an established Guthrie Family Group or represents a separate paternal lineage.

William Guthrie was associated with Christ Church Parish in Middlesex County, Virginia and had family connections through Lettice Burke and Frances Wilbourn.

The family was originally included in Family Focus because its paternal relationship to the established Guthrie Family Groups had not been genetically demonstrated.

Subsequent Y-DNA testing resolved that question by placing this lineage in Guthrie Family Group 1A.

The family remains in the Family Focus archive because the progression from an ungrouped Virginia lineage to a genetically identified Guthrie family illustrates the purpose of the project.

William Guthrey and Mary Musgrove established a large family in Georgia after William’s earlier years in Virginia. Their descendants became associated particularly with Greene, Oglethorpe, and Walker Counties.

For many years the family’s relationship to other Guthries in the region remained uncertain, leaving the lineage in an Ungrouped Family Status.

Y-DNA testing has since shown that William’s direct paternal descendants belong to Guthrie Family Group 4. The lineage is currently treated as GFG4 – Branch B.

The genetic result establishes shared paternal ancestry with GFG4, although William’s exact genealogical placement among the earlier descendants of Thomas Guthrey and Sarah Oakes has not yet been determined.

William Guthrie of Henry County, Kentucky was a veteran of the American Revolution who served as a private in the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Line. His pension evidence establishes his birth about 1736 and his death in Henry County on 10 March 1823.

His identity became entangled with another William Guthrie: William Guthrie, husband of Esther McClelland and later Frances “Franky” Haley Young. For many years the Henry County veteran’s birth and death details were assigned to that separate man.

The documentary records show that the two Williams were distinct. The husband of Esther McClelland belonged to GFG2A – Branch H and died about 1803–1804 in Virginia. The Henry County pensioner was still alive nearly two decades later.

William of Henry County married Catherine, whose maiden name is unknown. Records indicate that they had one son and one daughter, but their identities have not yet been securely reconstructed. Finding those descendants is crucial because a surviving paternal Guthrie line could provide the Y-DNA evidence needed to identify William’s genetic family.

William Guthrie was born in Scotland about 1793 and emigrated to the United States, settling in Switzerland County, Indiana. He married Margaret Japp there on 3 September 1828.

Contemporary and later biographical accounts describe William as a native of the Perth area and preserve a family tradition that he received an education in Scotland before emigrating. The precise identity of his parents and the details of his Scottish ancestry remain subjects for further documentary research.

William and Margaret raised a large family. In 1848 they moved with their children to Cass County, Indiana, where the family became established near Logansport.

Y-DNA from a direct paternal-line descendant has placed this lineage in Guthrie Family Group 12, Branch B. Its genetic profile has also produced significant matches to men of the Benbow surname, indicating that the deeper paternal history of GFG12 remains an important research question.