Most of our families came to America in colonial times from the British Isles, France,
Germany and Switzerland. One of my ancestors was an African slave who arrived in
Virginia on one of the earliest slave ships prior to 1630. 

I have also listed some families not related whose lives touched us in some way.

Phil's mother, Maryvonne Janine Rollet was a French war bride. My entire maternal line
from my great-grandmother Clara Josephine Thibodeaux and prior were all Acadian/Cajun
families. They went to Nova Scotia in the 1600s and some survived Le Grand Derangement,
the expulsion of the Acadians, in 1755. Ten of my direct ancestors are listed at the
Acadian Memorial in St. Martinsville, Louisiana as Cajun pioneers who arrived in
Louisiana from exile in France in 1785.

Phil's father, William Joseph Guthrie was the son of an Irish and Scottish woman from
the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Her name was Sarah Kathryn Denny. Bill's father was a
ne'er-do-well who abandoned his young family when Bill was a toddler. William Horace
Guthrie aka Brewster was a mysterious man who was apparently living in Detroit after he
left his wife and son in Cleveland, Ohio. A native of Connersville, Indiana, his roots
are more illustrious than his own life. Bill's Taylor line reaches back to Zachariah
Taylor of Orange County, Virginia. Family legend has it that these Taylors were related
to President Zachary Taylor.

On his father's side, Phil is a descendant of the Rodney family of Delaware and a
distant cousin of Caesar Rodney, the signer of the Declaration of Independence from
that state. It was Rodney's signature that finalized the American Revolution. Phil's
great-great-great grandfather Alexander Hamilton lived at Stamping Ground, Scott County
Kentucky. He is reputed to have been with Col. Dick Johnson when and if Johnson killed
the great warrior, Tecumseh. The earliest Guthrie we have is great-great grandfather
Lewis Guthrie, born in Kentucky in 1816. We don't know who his parents were, but
Lewis's census records indicate his parents were also born in Kentucky. A blacksmith,
Lewis was in Shelby County, KY in 1835, where he was married to Ann Cook. In 1840, he
was in Franklin County, KY. In 1850 he was living with a wife named Martha, who was
born in Tennessee in Deerfield Twp., Hamilton County, Ohio. In 1860, he was in Union
County, Indiana and married to Rebecca Jones, whose people came from Delaware. This
couple had six children in Union and Fayette counties in Indiana, and Phil is descended
from their second youngest child, William Owen Guthrie. William Owen married Miranda
Belle Taylor and William Horace was the eldest of their eight children. Phil is also a
descendant of the Newbold family of Delaware.

I'll continue later with information on my own lines.