Twigs to Trees
March, 2024
Mary Helen Haines
Greetings from Texas. April 20 will be our Annual Members Meeting and this year it will be in my backyard. Not literally, but about 45 minutes away from my house. I am looking forward to meeting some of our Texas members and anyone else who is able to come visit.
I have just been reminded of the importance of using primary source documents for verification of names and other information. For years I have in my family tree that Robert McFarland, b. abt. 1730 in Pennsylvania, was married to a Martha because of secondary sources that listed Martha as his wife signing deed documents. They were selling land in Virginia while living in Orange Co. NC. Now that familysearch.org has digitized so many of their records, there was no excuse to not look for the original document. So, even though I trusted the secondary sources, written by very reputable authors, when I found the original document it clearly showed the wife’s name as Margaret. That kind of mistake also applies to Robert’s father, so-called “Scotland” John. I have no idea when, if ever, that mistake will ever be completely rectified. There actually was a John McFarlane who was born in Scotland, and lived in the same area of western Virginia, but that was a completely different man, John Stewart McFarlane who married Elizabeth Campbell; not John McFarland, married to Mary Montgomery. That “Scotland” John nickname goes back to George Cleek’s book in the 1950s, who mixed all the McFarlands of the area together into one family.
Twigs to Trees
December, 2023
Mary Helen Haines
Greetings for the holidays!
Our MacFarlane DNA project is still doing great and we are continuing to learn even more about our ancestral past. I hope you will take advantage of the sales that occur during the holiday season. One of our female members just had her male cousin in County Tyrone complete the Big Y and discovered he is part of the same haplogroup that goes back to the Gartartan MacFarlanes….which brings me to the next gem which comes from the same line, just not the Irish branch.
I recently had the opportunity to purchase an original printing of an article written by Rev. William Barr Macfarlane when he was a Divinity student at the University of Glasgow in 1911. His subject was The Church of the Clan MacFarlane. 1911 is the same year the first Clan MacFarlane society was formed, and this paper was read at a meeting there as well as to the Scottish Ecclesiological Society. William Barr Macfarlane was a first cousin to James Macfarlane (1874-1950), author of History of Clan MacFarlane and The Red Fox. (and I should note, 1st cousin 3 times removed from our own Terrance Gach MacFarlane.)
Twigs to Trees
September, 2023
Mary Helen Haines
We have over 70 CMW members in the U.S. who descend from one immigrant ancestor, Robert McFarland (1675-1751) of northern Ireland, who came to Pennsylvania in 1719 with wife Jennet and 5 children. Their last child, Rebecca, was born and baptized in Pennsylvania in 1720. Forty-four men who descend from this line have tested their Y-DNA and share the haplogroup BY3019. BY3019 originated in Ireland in the 1650s, and is a downstream variant of BY7792 which is shared by people in Scotland and dates to around the 1570s. A CMW member asked me to organize a travel tour for members of this lineage so we could travel in the footsteps of our ancestors. Life happens, and we never did the tour, but I thought I would share with you the journey that could be taken, and how it connects up with the Heritage Trail that exists on our website. The trail starts in Pennsylvania then follows the path taken by Robert’s sons Robert Jr. and John Sr. as they moved south along what became The Great Road into western Pennsylvania, then south to Virginia, The journey follows John Sr. and his sons Robert and John Jr. as they left Virginia following the Wilderness Road into Tennessee. Then a mere 15 years later John Jr. and John III moved into North Carolina. Finally the trail moves across Tennessee to the Mississippi River to end in St. Francois County, Missouri where Senator John III died in 1820.
Driving the Heritage Trail Tour for the descendants of Robert McFarland (1675-1751)
The length of drives is assuming no stops, but I know that is impossible! Once you arrive at your destination, exact McFarland locations to visit are found in our Heritage Trail links below.