Twigs to Trees
March, 2022
Mary Helen Haines
Welcome to 2022! I am constantly amazed at how quickly time goes by. This is the 46th Twigs to Trees I have written since our inception in July 2010. We have published over 400 members’ abbreviated pedigrees like the ones below, but would love to have all our other 400 plus members who have not submitted their lineages to please join us in our efforts to make connections.
If you have any special stories to share about men and women in your lineage, please let me know so we can find a place, either in our newsletter, or on our website, to share their stories. We don’t want to forget those special people who contributed to our heritage, and the best way to remember them is to put it in writing and release it to the Ethernet.
This past couple of months I began looking into the Scots-Irish families that came to Maine in the early 1700s as part of the movement from northern Ireland to New England. In particular, I researched three areas of Maine: Brunswick, Boothbay, and Bristol. The article is located here in this website: https://www.clanmacfarlane.org/public_html/genealogy/genealogical-histories/529-the-early-mcfarland-settlers-in-maine.html
Twigs to Trees
December, 2021
Mary Helen Haines
It is late November; the weather outside today is a breezy 80 degrees here in Texas. My family is looking forward to gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we have all been triple vaxxed. I wish it was possible for the whole world to get vaccinated so we could get back to normal, but with outbreaks still occurring, it is hard to predict when that will happen. Our CMW trip to Scotland, originally planned for 2020, lost so many of the original participants that it had to be cancelled. Until we can be sure that countries will stay open and airline travel will be certain, it will be hard to plan another one.
This quarter I have been working with our Irish members, as well as McFarlands descended from the early settlers in Massachusetts and Mercer County Pennsylvania. The earliest MacFarlane immigrant to the American colonies was Purthe Macvarlo, who arrived about 1660, settled in Hingham Massachusetts and fathered 12 children with wife Patience Russell. DNA tests have confirmed he is a MacFarlane, just with very odd spelling by the first people who recorded his name. Our new member Heather represents a branch from Purthe we did not have in our database.
Twigs to Trees
September, 2021
Mary Helen Haines
It is nice to see cooler weather arriving this September. We actually had a rather mild summer for Texas, but I know it was scorching elsewhere. In August, my family and a few relatives made a trek to Ladonia, Texas to check on our McFarland cemetery. The cemetery is tucked under a grove of trees in the middle of pasture north of the Sulphur River in Fannin County. Once family land; it was part of a 1280 land grant given to my ancestor James McFarland, who arrived in 1837, one year after Texas became a Republic. The oldest stone dates to 1852, the year James’ son William died. However, it is likely that there are earlier burials. In 1839 there were skirmishes with local Indians that resulted in at least one death: Daniel Davis, the earliest settler in the area. He and other Texas Rangers (my McFarlands included) were sleeping in his home, when Indians attacked and he was killed. His body and his family were moved to James McFarland’s home, three miles directly east, for protection. It is likely that Daniel was buried in what ended up becoming known as the McFarland cemetery. Today, a reservoir lake is being constructed on the Sulphur River and will encompass much of the McFarland and Davis land grants. The cemetery will be above the water line, so should be safe, but some of the McFarland descendants wanted to check on it and make sure the Water Authority knew there were present-day people who knew and cared about its preservation.