MacFarlanes in Scotland and Ireland
Our McFarland History From Scotland to Texas
Chapter One: MacFarlanes in Scotland and Ireland
By Mary Helen Haines 2011
Genealogist for the Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc.
The home of the MacFarlane clan is the parish of Arrochar at the head of Loch Lomond and Loch Long at the beginning of the western Highlands. This area was granted by feudal charter to one of the younger sons of the second earl of Lennox in 1286. The history of this exchange is found in an old Celtic genealogy of Duncan, the eighth Earl of Lennox, who was executed in 1425. It goes something like this: the first Earl of Lennox was Alwyn, followed by his son, also named Alwyn, in 1199 as the second Earl. This Alwyn had many sons, the eldest being Maldouen, the third Earl, who granted his younger brother, Gilchrist, the lands of Arrochar. Gilchrist’s son Malduin was father to Parlan, which is a name that has been linked to Partholon, “Spirit of the Sea Waves,” from Irish mythology. In 1344, Parlan’s son, Malcolm MacPharlain, renewed the charter for the lands of Arrochar from Donald, the 6th Earl of Lennox. And that is the beginning of the Clan MacFarlane.
McFarlands Who Served in the American Revolution
McFarlands Who Served in the American Revolution
Compiled by Mary Helen Haines
When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, men with the surname McFarland, or a variant, signed up to fight, either for the Continental Army, or for the various regiments organized by the separate colonies. Other men, especially in the frontier regions, served in local militias, and those men who were too old, and some women as well, contributed to the war effort with goods that fed or clothed the men fighting.