ROOTS & BRANCHES

I’ve attended nearly all the annual National Genealogical Society conferences over the last 20 years.

A fixture, a “North Star” if you will, of those conferences—someone who was already a legendary figure when I started going to them—was Robert D. “Bob” McLaren, who passed away recently

There are some folks who “play dress up” for a day or two at conferences—OK, some people may have seen me in Lederhosen at last year’s NGS in St. Charles, Missouri!—but McLaren wore his kilt … every day of every conference!

And he wore it well. Indeed, he was kind of a walking “photo spot” with thousands of pictures over the decades, often introducing himself as “Bob McLaren of the Clan MacLaren,” one of the oldest Scottish clans.

McLaren did genealogical research for more than 30 years and was the chairman of the Genealogy Committee for the Clan MacLaren Society of North America, as well as that group’s Mid-Atlantic commissioner. In 2008, the Clan MacLaren Society (based in Scotland) asked him to be their Genealogist and he accepted.

He was also an early adopter of the genealogical uses of DNA testing. McLaren was the project administrator for the Clan MacLaren Surname DNA Project, one of the largest DNA projects with hundreds of participants. He also was in charge of three smaller surname DNA projects (Lindo, da Silva, and Braham).

McLaren presented numerous talks on DNA and genealogy at NGS conferences, to the Daughters of the American Revolution, and to other national and local societies. He was also a fixture helping people in the exhibit halls of the national conferences understand their DNA.

He did research in many areas of the United States, Canada, and Scotland to help Clan MacLaren members and clients.

As I noted, McLaren was always willing to pose for photo with others. It’s bittersweet now but my last photo with him was in St. Charles with DNA expert Diahan Southard.

McLaren was in his kilt, of course, and I was in my Lederhosen—so we were kind of a walking version of the Ancestry commercial in which DNA turns a person’s ethnicity upside down.

I told him that we had to do a “kilt vs. Lederhosen showdown”—whatever that might entail I remained a little fuzzy on!—and that Southard was going to “judge” it, which resulted in the photo.

With her typical spunky wit, when someone asked on Facebook who won the showdown, Southard replied: “It was too close to call!”

Ah, the memories. Rest in peace, Bob!