The McCargar database is not yet available online. However, we have made available a list of surnames appearing in our database, assembled from the names of spouses, spouses’ parents, and non-McCargar descendants. If you are looking for information on a specific McCargar or someone you believe was related to a McCargar, send your query to: queries@mccargar.com.
Note: Due to privacy policies on official documents, we do not have much information on living McCargars. We do not track current addresses of living McCargars.
The McCargar Code
When Fred S. McCargar prepared the first McCargar family roster in 1934, he employed an alpha-numeric coding system that he had taken from another source (we don’t know the original source). The system has carried through succeeding rosters, and has become affectionately known as the “McCargar Code”.
The McCargar Code is a descendant code that uses one alphabetical letter for each generation, with the letters representing the birth order within each generation (‘A’ for first born, ‘B’ for second born, etc.). The number of letters in an individual’s code indicates the number of generations from our earliest known ancestors, Joseph and Thomas McCargar. Computers have allowed us to make minor tweaks to the original coding system to better keep track of the data. Individuals born as McCargars are coded in BOLD uppercase letters; their spouses have the same code (not bold) followed by a number (which indicates 1st, 2nd, etc. marriage); and spouses’ parents have the spouse’s code with a ‘+’ sign. Non-McCargar descendants are all lowercase following the same rules.
Example:
Wayne McCargar’s code is ‘BIEGBAA’, which means he’s a seventh generation McCargar.
The code breaks down as:
B – Thomas McCargar (younger brother of Joseph)
I – Philander (Thomas’s ninth child)
E – Soloman (Philander’s fifth child)
G – Philander (Soloman’s seventh child)
B – Charles (Philander’s second child)
A – Harold (Charles’s first child)
A – Wayne (Harold’s first child)
Wayne’s wife is coded ‘BIEGBAA1’ and her parents are both coded ‘BIEGBAA1+’. Wayne’s first born, April, is coded ‘BIEGBAAA’, but her children are coded ‘biegbaaaa’ and ‘biedgbaaab’.
We currently do not track a spouse’s lineage back beyond their parents, though if we did we would have to greatly alter the code or completely it.
The McCargar Code was ideal for maintaining an ever-expanding roster as it made adding new members (and new generations) a trivial matter of simply expanding the code. The code was also informative in itself since it contained the individual’s direct ancestors’ codes, which made finding the ancestors extremely simple. If a member was found to be out of birth order (for example, new information changing the birth date), updating the affected members’ codes became a bit more complicated since their descendants’ codes had to be updated as well. However, only one letter in each person’s code had to change, not the entire code.
With the advent of the computer, the McCargar Code has become almost obsolete. Users can now search for individuals by name, display a lineage as a graph, and add or reorder individuals with the click of a button. We have maintained the McCargar Code within our database, but we use it primarily as a quick identifier for differentiating individuals with the same name. Of course, the computer automates generating and updating the code as we add or modify records in the database.
Unfortunately, in the past there have been instances where the code has not been interpreted correctly, with one of the code letters being mistakenly used for a person’s middle initial. Past lore had the earliest McCargar brothers (Thomas and Joseph) in the wrong order (they had Thomas as the older brother) – this had Thomas coded as ‘A’ and Joseph as ‘B’. Someone misinterpreted the ‘A’ as his middle initial and, still today, there are family trees out there that have his name as Thomas A McCargar. We have a multitude of documents on Thomas, with not one of them giving a middle name/initial.
