tl;dr Short History (summary of over 650 years of history):

Do you have relatives from Pennsylvania with the last name Good, Gut, or Guth?

If so, there's a Good chance that you may be descended from Lorentz Guth who came to Pennsylvania from the Reinland-Pfalz region of Germany, although Lorentz's father Rudolf Guth was originally from Ottenbach, Switzerland (near Zurich) where the Gut family had lived for centuries.  The name Rudolf was used in many generations of the Gut family.  In fact, the first Gut there is a record for is Rudolf Gut (1370-1412), sometimes seen as Rudi Gut or Rudi Guttan of the Zurich region of Switzerland.  He was said to be a wealthy man who may have managed large farmlands. 

When Lorentz Guth came to Pennsylvania in 1738, he settled near Allentown, and quickly became owner of a great expanse of land in what is now Whitehall Township.  You can still find "Guthsville" on the map here, and Lorentz's family home still remains there.  Later, in 1752, he donated some of his land to allow the Jordan Church to be founded.  Then, on May 27, 1776, Lorentz's son, Lorentz Guth Jr hosted a gathering of patriots on the family homestead which is said to have given pivotal momentum to Pennsylvania's support for the Declaration of Independence.  Lorentz Jr himself fought in the American Revolution.  Many descendents of Lorentz Guth remain, to this day, in eastern Pennsylvania.

But not all remained there. In the early 1800s, Lorentz Jr's son Johann Lorentz Guth moved his growing family from eastern Pennsylvania to western Pennsylvania, settling near the Export/Murrysville area.  Within a generation, the name Guth appears to have been anglicized to Good.  We can see this at cemetary at the Denmark Manor United Church of Christ where many descendents of Johann are buried.  All of these graves, including Johann's children, such as one of the oldest graves (Christian Good (1799-1874)) bear the Good name on the headstones.  It is unclear what happened to Johann's grave. 

Having had large families, there are many descendents of Johann in western Pennsylvania, many of whom do not know they are related. My own branch of the family descends from Johann's great-grandson Israel Elias Good.  Israel's son William Henry Good split from the Denmark Manor church and tragically lost his wife Lavanche in 1920, likely due to the flu pandemic of 1918--she was only 37 and they had several small children at the time of her death.  One of those children was my grandfather James Leroy Good, who was only 7 when his mother died.  Perhaps due to these difficult circumstances, Leroy's subsequent relationship with his own children was strained, and so the family history was completely lost.

Only in 2024, was I able to reconstruct our past and I aim to record our family history as accurately and thoroughly as possible. There are many Goods, Guts, and Guths scattered throughout the country now, in all walks of life, and I hope to help us all rediscover our rich history. I have visited Lorentz Guth's grave, the church he founded (the Jordan United Church of Christ), and his home in Guthsville, PA.  I have also visited Ottenbach, Switzerland to see for myself where our family came from. I continue to do research and have found several artifacts, including our family heraldry and a family history written in 1912, written in old Fraktur script in German! Wherever possible, I will share electronic versions of these artifacts, and keep the history up-to-date with new discoveries. Fun fact: Robert Downey Jr is descended from the same Rudolf Gut (1370-1412) of Switzerland!  Yes, we are related to Iron Man!