TWIGS TO TREES #45 DECEMBER 2021
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.