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Genealogy from James W.H. MacLaren I am the genealogist of the Clan MacLaren Society. The Society was founded in 1962 and now has 700 members in 15 different countries. While most of these members are based here in the UK the Clan MacLaren Society of North America (CMSNA) and the Society in Australia (CMSA) are particularly active. We would welcome anyone choosing to join us in the Society which you can do by writing for an application form or via the Society website. The Society exists for a number of reasons. Fostering kinship between our Clan's people, encouraging interest in the history of Scotland, particularly the Highlands, and arranging meetings of Clan members. Another objective of the Society is collecting our Clan genealogies from here and overseas. I am writing to you to encourage you to create your own family tree. Over the past year members and non-members alike have been sending me family trees. If you send yours to me I will try and match it with other trees in our database. The goal of the project is to link up various branches of the Clan MacLaren from a genealogical perspective. This should assist members abroad in extending their MacLaren lines back to Scotland and, in the other direction, helping British members identify relatives in other countries. Thus, I am trying to build a database of MacLarens with the intention of finding links between families across the globe. I would like to encourage all of you who have not yet researched your family tree to do so. As well as uncovering all sorts of unexpected information you may discover a missing link which will assist other members of the Clan. I am sure you will find researching your family tree a rewarding experience. The good news is that there appears to be a tremendous volume of family information covering Scotland, the US and Canada. There are various websites you can use. Try www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk website to identify generations in Scotland from about 1800 to 1900. By creating a British database I should be able to intersect at some of those "points" and allow the respective family trees to connect. There are members of the Clan who are willing to dig through them for you if you were willing to send them. In Scotland we have the national registry, which includes Old Parish Registers, Census returns etc which can be accessed. This would be the first source for anyone seeking family history. When compiling your family tree you might find it helpful to look at the genealogical section of www.ClanMacLarenNA.org website. It gives an indication of the detail collected by Clan MacLaren North American members. If you use a computer with Family Tree Maker software to prepare your tree, please send me a backup copy of your file as it is more flexible and allows me to paste it into a larger file. To do this, select "backup" under the "file" menu and make a backup of your file. Then send that backup file as an attachment to your email. I should then be able to open it and amalgamate it with other files I have. When I do this it will confirm any matches with other family tree files that I have. Should I come across a match then I shall let you know right away. If you do not have any family tree computer software, you might like the idea of building up your tree online. You can do this free with www.genesreunited.co.uk although it will cost you money to search for a match to an individual. At some point, you may want to build upon the basic information entered onto Genes Reunited. At that time, you can buy some software for your own computer (I recommend Family Tree Maker) and copy your data to it from the Genes Reunited site. Once you have your family tree on your computer it becomes very easy to update or change it. It is also easy to share with other members of your family. If you use another genealogy software package then you should be able to save a copy of your tree to disc in what is called GEDCOM format. I understand that all genealogy software can read this GEDCOM format. If you would like to help build up our database of MacLaren ancestors then please send me a copy of your file. Please send me your family tree preferably by email or on computer disc but if not then a hard copy (paper) would still be very useful. Or if you are struggling to find the next branch on the tree then why not drop me a line or send me an email, my email address is james-maclaren@freeuk.com and I will try to help. I look forward to hearing from many of you and hope that you will consider becoming a member of the Clan MacLaren Society. Creag an Tuirc James W.H. MacLaren