Twigs to Trees
June, 2023
Mary Helen Haines
Welcome to summer and the Scottish gaming season. Some of you have already attended games in Florida, and we hope to see you at other games throughout the season. At CMW we are also getting ready for our annual Board elections. Every year we get the chance to add 3 board members as the terms end for three present board members. I am one of those whose term ends this year. I hope you will consider running for a Board position in the future; it is nice to be a part of our clan leadership and help guide the future. Speaking of democratic institutions, voting is a right we should not take lightly. It has been hard won over a long time period, and we can be proud of our forbearers who fought for those rights, which brings me to the history below.
A little over 200 years ago, Iain George Macfarlane’s ancestor, Thomas McFarlane, participated in the Radical Rising of 1820 to better the lives of working classes in Scotland. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, economic hardships and the lack of political freedoms had led to organizing, petitions, peaceful demonstrations and workingmen’s strikes. Fed up with inaction or positive responses from those in power, on April 1, 1820, a Proclamation was issued in Glasgow calling for a Provisional Government and a general strike. The Proclamation called for equality of rights with the motto “Liberty or Death.” The strike led to a work shut-down of approximately 60,000 men in the weaving communities throughout central Scotland. Paramilitary drills took place in different places and the government was on high alert.
Twigs to Trees
March, 2023
Mary Helen Haines
This is column number 50!!! The first “Twigs to Trees” was published in March, 2011, in our first issue of Loch Sloy! Since that time we have published over 440 pedigrees and are still going strong, bringing in new members from all over the world. All of you have interesting stories to share about your ancestors. We welcome those stories, so feel free to use our platform to share with CMW by emailing our team members. We can publish in future Loch Sloy! newsletters or in Twigs to Trees, or on our website.
As some of you know, in my former life before retiring, I was a highschool teacher. I taught World History, European History and Art History. Moving into genealogy was a natural fit, and I love research and writing. This past year I decided to look into how all the different haplogroups made their way to the British Isles and what they brought with them. The result is three new articles about that movement of peoples using DNA and archaeology to provide the answers. I hope you enjoy the articles. Part One will appear in this issue.
One of our newest members descends from a MacFarlane family that came to Puslinch township, Wellington County, Ontario in the 1830s. When I started entering her information, I remembered having heard that unusual name before, and found that there were several MacFarlane families there at the same time. Like pulling a thread, I couldn’t stop until I followed all the lines, so following our newest pedigrees, I am sharing the results of that thread below.
Twigs to Trees
December, 2022
Mary Helen Haines
What a wonderful time we had at the AMM at Stone Mountain, Georgia this October. The weather was perfect, the setting is beautiful, and we got to visit with so many of our CMW members, some I haven’t seen in person since our last trip there in 2011. At each AMM the committees present a report to the membership that updates everyone on the year’s activities. My report can be found with the others at the end of this Loch Sloy! edition, as well as on our website under About, then Minutes after signing in.
Elsewhere in this Loch Sloy! is Part Three of the research into the early Ohio McFarland settlers. Next year look for articles about the movement of peoples into the British Isles during the Mesolithic through the High Middle Ages leading to development of the MacFarlane Clan.
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Doing research on our newest Australian member, Peter Bernard McFarlane, I learned about new occupations and places that are part of our Scottish heritage. Peter’s ancestor Peter Duncan McFarlane was born in 1822 in Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire to Robert McFarlane and Janet Bell. Peter Duncan McFarlane, wife Ann Pollock, and family immigrated to Australia in 1853. Unfortunately Peter Duncan McF. Sr. died one year after his arrival in Australia and Ann died in 1859, taking with them much knowledge of the family’s past.