I can not make a connection but I do have a cousin named Virgil Johnston born 1872 in Quincy, IL. He moved to Kansas City in 1902 and married Ethel L. Conser. Virgil began an extensive genealogy of his family in 1903 which was the basis for my own later research. Ironically I do not have info on his children.
Virgil Johnston was son of John Waller Johnston (1834-1903) and Isabelle White. John Waller Johnston was born in Kentucky and in 1856 he moved to Lewis Co., MO; in 1858 he had a livery business in LaGrange, MO; during Civil War he moved to Quincy, Illiniois.