A minor could have had several guardians during their minority if one or both of their parents were deceased. Guardians generally fall into two categories:
Guardian of the person–watched over the child and the child typically lived with them. Parents were often “guardians of the person,” and were sometimes referred to as “natural guardians.”
Guardian of the estate–watched over the child’s inheritance.
These guardians may have been the same person, may have been relatives, and may have changed during the child’s minority. Or not–it depends upon the situation.
There is also the possibility that a guardian ad litem was appointed for a minor. A guardian ad litem was usually appointed for a child when that child was somehow involved in legal action and did not have a guardian of their own (such as if their parent’s estate was being sued and a guardian had never been appointed for the child) . This guardian was actually serving as the child’s “lawyer” and was not a guardian of the child’s person or estate.
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Guardianships seem complicated, but have some logic. A guardian could not act outside of the jurisdiction that appointed him or her.
What jurisdiction appointed the guardian depended on what was to be conserved for the ward. In one cousin family, a guardian was appointed for minor heirs to their father’s estate in the County where the father’s property was located. Then the minors’ paternal grandfather died intestate in the adjacent County in a different State, and a guardian was appointed to look after their interest in the grandfather’s estate. It got a bit complicated when the father’s estate was sued by the grandfather’s estate administrator to recover a debt. And the grandfather’s assets were actually located in the same County where the heirs’ father’s land was located, even though the grandfather’s estate administration took place where he died (in the adjacent State). Glad not to be a County Court judge sorting all this out.
A Guardian ad litem was not precisely an attorney for a ward, since s/he was appointed by a Court, not hired by the ward (nor by a ward’s guardian). The guardian ad litem was acting as a personal representative only in context of a particular legal action. Judy Russell has a nice article on guardians ad litem:
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2015/05/06/the-guardian-ad-litem/
In one of my cousin families, a guardian ad litem was appointed for a minor heir to an estate (in right of her deceased father) who lived in a different State than the Chancery Court that was handling the overall estate of her deceased grandmother and great-grandfather. It made no difference whether the minor heir had a guardian appointed in her home County regarding whatever estate her father had there. She was her deceased father’s only heir, and was one of 13 heirs among whom the Chancery Court had a decedent’s land partitioned. Amazingly, this phase of the proceedings went rather smoothly.
I have an instance where a guardian was appointed in Missouri in 1875 where the child lived with her father but no reason was given and there was nothing more about it. It was suggested by an employee that perhaps someone had died elsewhere and the child might have been eligible to inherit but didn’t. Her mother had died in 1866. She was living with her father in 1870. Her grandfather (mother’s side died in 1862). I haven’t found any other relatives that died around 1875 but this is a family with little information on her father’s side. Nothing about his parents or sibling except his mother’s name and she came to live with her son about 1870 and died between 1880 and 1885.