We single out a class of difference families which is widely used in some constructions of Hadamard matrices and which we call Goethals--Seidel (GS) difference families. They consist of four subsets (base blocks) of a finite abelian group of order $v$, which can be used to construct Hadamard matrices via the well-known Goethals--Seidel array. We consider the special class of these families in cyclic groups, where each base block is either symmetric or skew. We omit the well-known case where all four blocks are symmetric. By extending previous computations by several authors, we complete the classification of GS-difference families of this type for odd $v<50$. In particular, we have constructed the first examples of so called good matrices, G-matrices and best matrices of order 43, and good matrices and G-matrices of order 45. We also point out some errors in one of the cited references.