Welcome to the Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc. Genealogy Team
We want to make sure that everyone who is interested in furthering knowledge of their Scottish heritage gets the help they need. The team consists of long term CMW members, who all bring different strengths to the table, and represent a diverse group of lineages within Clan MacFarlane, Cadet, Hidden MacGregor, and Dal Riata Scots. Terrance is administrator for FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) MacFarlane surname project. Other team members are co-admins for the project. All can help CMW members with traditional genealogical research as well as genetic genealogy; the understanding DNA testing, autosomal, and yDNA STR, and SNP results, and how this data can reconnect lost family branches.
Genealogy Team Chairperson: Peter McFarland
Andrew MacFarlane :
I started out in genealogy some 30 years ago trying to prove the supposed clan connection of my line (which had already been well researched by my mother) to that of the MacFarlane chiefs. I very quickly found that Terrance in the USA was the world’s main researcher on the chiefs and their cadet houses. He became my mentor as I worked my way through the existing lineages. I then decided I should research all Macfarlane families with the idea of being able to track all Macfarlane families back to their Scottish, and clan roots.
I have traveled with the people involved with setting up CMWI, on the 2006 and 2009 tours to Scotland, enjoyed their company and look forward to joining them again for the next visit to Scotland.
I also belong to the Clan MacFarlane Australia Inc. a robust little society looking after MacFarlanes in Australia, and now New Zealand. I keep my own database generated web-site on Clan MacFarlane which served as CMW's genealogy database since it's forming. at www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info
The information on Macfarlane family lines comes from all over the world but I receive much help with USA based Macfarlanes from long time CMW Genealogy Chairperson Mary Helen Haines and clan chiefs and the cadet houses from Chevalier Terrance Gach MacFarlane.
Chevalier Terrance Gach MacFarlane:
I have been researching MacFarlane genealogy since 1968 when my grandfather turned over his genealogy collection, built up over his lifetime, to me. As he was a first cousin once removed to James Macfarlane, the author of the History of Clan MacFarlane (1922), it was quite an extensive trove of material. Over the decades, while researching our chiefs, I have greatly expanded my grandfather’s collection to include such items as James Macfarlane’s notes and drafts for the (unpublished) second volume of his History (tracing the MacFarlane cadet houses).
From 1980 to 1990 I served as the Vice President of Genealogy for the Clan MacFarlane Society during which time I focused on finding the heir to our chiefs. Following that, I began work on three manuscripts: The Scots Nobility, The House of Lennox, and The Barons of Arrochar and Their Cadets, while continuing to research our chiefs in conjunction with Elizabeth Macfarlane, my successor (1991 to 2009) as genealogist at the Clan MacFarlane Society.
Currently, most of my free time is spent on the day-to-day administration of the largest MacFarlane DNA project in the world hosted by FamilyTreeDNA.com (FTDNA) which is the oldest and largest commercial genetic genealogy lab in the world. Andrew Macfarlane and Mary Helen Haines serve as co-administrators of the project along with several others.
FTDNA has the world’s largest yDNA (direct male line ancestry) and mtDNA (direct female line ancestry) database and tests more yDNA markers and mtDNA makers than any other lab in the world. They also test autosomal block DNA (the DNA found between the other two). If you have reached the end of the paper trail for any particular ancestor you should try genetic genealogy. Come visit us at:
http://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=MacFarlane
I am learning something new every day, which feeds my inborn thirst for knowledge. I take much pleasure in sharing my findings and look forward to learning from the esteemed MacFarlane family historians, genealogists, and genetic DNA professionals.
Nancy Hudson
I enjoy “family puzzling” as my Aunt Mary Leyda called genealogical research. Aunt Mary was the person who told me about my McAlister roots and about Clan McAlister of America (CMA). I joined CMA in I997 and am the lead administrator for the FTDNA McAlister Project. With DNA testing, we learned that our McAlister family actually descends from the House of Lennox through Clan MacFarlane. Because of that, I decided to join Clan MacFarlane Worldwide in 2021 and was happy to join the Board of Directors in 2025. I am part of the genealogy team and also serve as a co-administrator of the FTDNA MacFarlane Project.
I have enjoyed getting to know members of Clan MacFarlane and look forward to learning more about our Clan history. My hope is to help connect MacFarlane families through generic genealogy and research.
Peter McFarland
I have been a CMW member since 2011, and part of CMW Genealogy team since 2015. An FTDNA MacFarlane surname project Co-Admin for ten plus years, I help evolve CMW yDNA/genealogical profile for Sept lines, recruited lineage members, and educate them on yDNA testing and results. My lineage, the Dal Riata McFarlands, though not a cadet of the clan chief has grown to represent the second largest paternal line after Clan MacFarlane chief's.
My genealogy journey began when my father brought back family heirlooms after his oldest sibling passed at the age of eighty-eight. Consisting of a Methodist bible given to my GGF John Wesley McFarland by his brother-in-law Grant Smith in Saline, Ill after the Civil War; a portrait of my maternal GGF, Charles Brantley, a gold, and silver miner in Cripple Creek, and Leadville, Co, and the broadcloth black coat he wore in it; a miniature 1880 tintype photo of his wife, Nancy Howlett, and her twin brother. And finally the brown sunbonnet Nancy wore on her trip by covered wagon with Charles and my GM, a new born infant, from Stoddard, Mo. to Cripple Creek along the Arkansas river. Holding, seeing, and hearing about these ancestors was a fascinating trip back in time for me. What lay ahead, when I learned from my father that no one knew anymore about our family history, was my journey to become a genealogist. Since that day in 1989 I have traveled in spirit, and person through MO, Il, TN, NC, and Virginia plus a host of other southern states to discover my McFarland heritage. My adventure culminated with a FTDNA BigY research project that included discovering the lineage's Scottish origins on the Isle of Islay involving a team of descendant researchers, and more than fifty yDNA kits.