This is a REALLY helpful post dzyg. I thank you for posting it and hope that many people view it. This is a perplexing ID issue which many of us have endured. I just did some research on this very issue, and I came across a cool webpage which helped me a lot with this. It mentions the brown cheek patch of the male House Finch as an ID clue. This was helpful to me. http://www.birdzilla.com/bird-identification/id-skill-development/id-challenges/red-finches.html

In your pic it looks Red, but if it's Orange then it's a House finch. The Purple Finch looks like it's been dipped in Rasbery juice.

I am not certain about other Finches but as a rule the American Gold Finch tends to stay in the same region year around however they undergo a rather remarkable color change from summer to winter. In their summer or "Breeding Plumage" the males are bright yellow with black wings and are commonly called wild canaries. In winter the males have a smooth chocolate brown color with black wings and are often mistaken for sparrows. I am attaching some photos that I took while living in N. E. Ohio (Youngstown, Oh) which has climatic conditions quite similar to N. Virginia.

See THIS POST. tj