A Royal Descent for Isaac Cummings of Mistley, Essex, England and Ipswich , Essex, Massachusetts ?

[Yahoo!Inc]

1 Edward III, King of England d 1377 married Philippa of Hainault
2 John, Duke of Lancaster d 1399 m 3rd (his former Mistress) Catherine (Roet) Swynford.
3 John Beaufort, Earl and Marquess of Somerset d 1410 m Margaret de Holand d 1439
4 Joan Beaufort d 1445, widow of James I of Scotland married 2nd Sir James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn (killed by Flemish pirates after 1451)
5 John Stewart, 1st Earl of Atholl died 1512 married 1st Lady Margaret Douglas d between 1473-1475 possibly as her 3rd husband.
6 Lady Jean Stewart married in 1474 Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly d 1524
7 Sir Alexander Gordon of Strathavon married Janet Grant
8 Margaret Gordon married Thomas Cuming of Altyre (1503-1575)
9 James Cumming 1536-1610 married Mary
10 John Cumming 1565-1634 m Amy Greene of Much Birch, Essex.
11 Isaac Cummings 1601-1677 m Anne.

Saw another version in which generation 9 was John Cumming 1540- 1594 married Mary / Joan.

Think it doubtful in extreme there is anything to it, but you never know. Chronology is pretty good.

[wjhonson]

I don't know a credible source that gives a Margaret Gordon as a daughter to this Alexander and Janet. What is it?

[Paulo Canedo]

I'm inclined to view the connection of the Cummings of Essex to the Cummings of Scotland as a pure fiction.

[John Higgins]

The parentage and earlier descent of Margaret Gordon in generation 8 above can be confirmed in these works:
1) J. M. Bulloch, The House of Gordon (1903), vol. 1 pp. 19-20
2) Sir Robert Douglas, The Baronage of Scotland (1798), p. 334

Both of these are available online - check the usual websites (including the FHL).

The connection to Isaac Cummings of New England is properly characterized above as "doubtful in the extreme". For (relatively) recent articles on his origins, see NEHGR 145-239-240 (1991) and NEHGR 153-52-72 (1999).

[Kelsey Jackson Williams]

Paulo is right - the link between the Cumings of Altyre and the Essex family is certainly fictitious as presented here. Thomas Cuming of Altyre was contracted to marry Margaret Grant, daughter of James Grant of Freuchie, on 15 September 1552, though it's not clear if the marriage actually took place [1]. Either way, he was certainly married to Margaret Gordon, daughter of Alexander Gordon, 1st of Strathdon and granddaughter of the 3rd Earl of Huntly, by 4 July 1561, putting this marriage somewhere in the 1552x1561 window [2].

This in itself makes it clearly impossible for Thomas and Margaret to have had a son born in 1536, but they *did* have a son James and it's worth relating his career as well just to decisively disprove what's shown here. James Cuming of Altyre was his parents' third son but eventually succeeded to the estate. His marriage contract, dated at Elgin, Bog o’ Gight, and Altyre, 29-30 September 1599 and 20 and 26 February 1600, was not with the anonymous Mary named above but with Margaret Gordon, daughter of Sir Thomas Gordon of Cluny [3]. She must have died very soon afterwards as by 16 November 1602 he had remarried to Margaret Fraser, daughter of Hugh Fraser, 5th Lord Fraser of Lovat, by Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of John Stewart, 4th Earl of Atholl [4]. By Margaret he left two children: Robert, who succeeded him, and Jean, who married in 1627 to John Hay of Lochloy [5]. The John Cumming of generation ten is evidently both a generation too old and hundreds of miles further south than this family. To the best of my knowledge, migrations between Elgin and Essex were not exactly standard in this period . . . .

All the best,
Kelsey

[1] Fraser, Chiefs of Grant, iii. 377-378.
[2] Reg. Mag. Sig., 1580-1593, no. 1122.
[3] Reg. Mag. Sig., 1593-1608, no. 1255.
[4] Elizabeth Cumming Bruce, Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns (Edinburgh and London, 1870), 465.
[5] Elgin Sasines, 1st ser., iii. 126, 127.