 The primary mission of the
Clan McAlister of America is to research our North American ancestry and
culture, and then to share and preserve this information. So far we have
established 200 significant McAlister family lines in North America --
many of them going back to the original immigrants from Scotland or Ireland.
We now have over 47,000 McAlister descendants in our database, which we
use to link family lines together. By sharing information everyone benefits .
You benefit because we search the existing records and, if we find that you fit into one of the many lines
in the CMA database, we tell tell you just how your family fits in. Whether you are a member or not, we would like to incorporate
the names and dates of your McAlister ancestors and descendants into the
CMA database. Remember, only with everyone's help will we be able to complete
the picture of McAlister migration and family ties.
| "The
happiest lot on earth is to be born a Scotsman. You must pay for it in
many ways - You have to learn the Paraphrases and the Shorter Catechism;
you generally take to drink; your youth is a time of louder war against
society, of more outcry and tears and turmoil than if you had been born,
for instance, in England. But somehow life is warmer and closer; the hearth
burns more redly; the lights of home shine softer on the rainy street..." |
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Silverado Squatters, Chapter 4, "The Scot Abroad" |
Please send us copies of your family information so we can include them
in our Genealogy Library. All material will be reviewed and entered into
the database if it is information we do not already have.
Computer users
If you have your family history in a computer genealogy program, the following
instructions will tell you how to share your data with us. It's easy!
If you have one of the following programs, you can simply make a copy of
the file containing your McAlister genealogy and send it to us on a floppy
disk. We can read it directly.
| Personal Ancestral File (PAF) |
|
Brother's Keeper |
| Family Tree Maker |
|
Ancestral Quest |
| Generations |
|
The Master Genealogist |
| Reunion |
|
GEDCOM |
If you use another
program, you will need to create a GEDCOM file as described below.
GEDCOM File
Most genealogy software programs will create a "GEDCOM file" so the family
data can be shared with other people who are using different programs.
You can normally find this feature under your "File" menu, or sometimes
it is under an "Export" menu. If you can't find it in your menus, check
your user's manual index for "GEDCOM".
If your program has this capability, simply follow the instructions on
your computer screen to create a GEDCOM file of your data. You may be presented
with several options as you go through the menus to create the file. Most
of the options are not critical, so just accept the default values.
Macintosh computer users!
We can also accept your GEDCOM files when saved onto Macintosh disks. If you are using PAF,
- Go to the File menu, and
pick "Export",
- Then pick "GEDCOM",
- and then pick destination
of "PAF 2.1 on a different computer"
Send your data to us!
We want our Database to have all the pieces of the McAlister puzzle! Send
your questions, written documents or your computer genealogy files to the
Genealogy Committee today. |