So What Does the Society Genealogist Do, Anyway?

This article was written by Clan Buchanan Society International (CBSI) Genealogist Christine Conlon for the Buchanan Banner, the Society's digital newsletter. This was recently shared with the members of the new COSCA Genealogists Forum on the group's Facebook page. If you are responsible for your clan or family society's genealogy, yo can join the group by sending a message to COSCA@bforbes.com.

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By Christine Conlon, Clan Buchanan Society International (CBSI) Genealogist

Perhaps you’ve read some of the articles that I’ve submitted to the Banner over these last few months, or perhaps not. I try to speak to subjects that many people have in common when we discuss genealogy, such as how to preserve photos, why it’s important to cite your sources, how to accomplish research, why it’s important to maintain consistency when we research, etc. It seems to be a universal concept to “do genealogy” now that we have so many websites that are commercially available. But perhaps you’ve asked yourself what the heck does a genealogist for The Clan Buchanan Society International Inc. actually do?

Since the inception of the Society in the 1970’s, there has been at least one and sometimes two genealogists (covering different portions of the US). Each different genealogist brought something unique to the table to offer the members of the Society. When someone joined the Society in the past, they were asked to submit a family genealogy. These were usually handwritten pedigree charts or a simple listing of what was known about their particular family. Many people seem to have joined the Society in order to further their knowledge of their specific family tree. Those submissions have been held in paper files ever since they were sent off to the genealogist. Over the last few years my predecessor spent many hours scanning these paper files in addition to accomplishing her own research and working on a series of books about the Buchanan history (with her predecessor!).

These member submissions are a wealth of information that is currently being entered into genealogy software to create comprehensive “gedcom” files which are then uploaded to the year old Buchanan-genealogy.org website. On this site Society members can research through an ever-expanding database of member submitted family files. This information may not be available from any other commercial source. Caution must be taken however to more thoroughly research the information that might be located in these files as they are unsourced. We actively solicit from our current members their family tree. These will be uploaded to the website where members only can research.

What else does the Society genealogist do? There are questions and requests for information and research submitted through both the CBSI main website & the genealogical site. Those are researched in our database or through discussion with other experts in the Society. The question of whether a particular surname is an “associated or affiliated” sept of Clan Buchanan is a regular request. We very often have folks asking for more information on their family tree that we try to help. With the launch of the Buchanan genealogy website, we have a number of people who find the site via an internet search. We educate them on the Clan Society and encourage them to join in order to access member-only benefits.

As we progress through the previously submitted member genealogies, we are winnowing out various surnames that are not officially recognized sept surnames. We hope to eventually connect every sept surname to the main Buchanan family tree, in its proper place and time.

With this past year’s integration of the Oceania and Mexican branches of CBSI, we are now much more international. We hope to soon have genealogies from many other countries to include in the genealogy database. Currently the inclusions have been far more US oriented and as a result we have much information on few lineages. As both of these groups continue their organization, we anticipate that their members will send in family trees to be added to the database. We will also be working toward combining the many different families into a single comprehensive tree, i.e. the George Buchanan of Gartincaber line which is responsible for many of the US families. It is a goal to integrate all the different trees into a singular lineage which will include all the various families.