TWIGS TO TREES #39, JUNE 2020
Twigs to Trees
June, 2020
Mary Helen Haines
Please extend a welcome to Peter E. McFarland, our newest addition to the Genealogy team. I have known Peter since the beginning of CMW when we were working on his lineage, extending his Wilson County, Tennessee roots back to North Carolina. Since that time his DNA cousins have grown by leaps and bounds. When you read the June issue of Loch Sloy! look for the articles posted by Susan Kromer Hunt, whose husband Bill is a part of Peter’s line, as is Billy Eason McFarland, one of our current Directors. Ryan McFarland, another Director, is one of his DNA cousins. Please read his introduction on our genealogy page at https://www.clanmacfarlane.org/public_html/genealogy/getting-started.html
It is hard to know where to start….I was so looking forward to gathering in San Antonio, and then in Scotland this summer; however, we are all staying safe at home. When I was thinking about this quarterly column and what to write; it came to me in the middle of the night…does that happen to you also? I started thinking about the MacGregors and the MacFarlanes; two rival clans, like the Capulets and Montagues, and the Hatfields and McCoys.
Although they were rivals, they also collaborated, and sometimes intermarried. One of the places CMW visited in our 2014 trip to Scotland was the final resting place for one such couple: Duncan MacFarlane and his wife Katherine MacGregor on the Isle of Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond.
If all goes well, CMW will be visiting this site again in 2021. For those on the 2014 CMW trip, this can be a trip down memory lane. For those who will be traveling at some time in the future, this can be a preview of just one of the great MacFarlane sites to visit.
At the southern end of Loch Lomond is the Balmaha boatyard, currently owned by MacFarlanes who are descended from Duncan and Katherine. It is just a short boat ride to Inchcailloch and then to Inchfad, where Duncan and Katherine made their home.
This area is all a part of Buchanan Parish in Stirlingshire, where their records can be found. Just across the Loch is the town of Luss in Dumbartonshire.
Duncan MacFarlane was born about 1735 in Stirlingshire, and married Katherine MacGregor in 1756. Duncan and Katherine are in our database here: https://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I9140&tree=CC