Most of the very early immigrants to Colonial New England came from Eastern England, often from the coastal counties of Suffolk and Essex. Those counties may be where the families of Isaac Cummings had lived for generations prior to his departure for Massachusetts with his wife and children about 1635 from the Essex village of Mistley.

Arriving only fifteen years after the Mayflower Pilgrims, the Cummings family lived in several Massachusetts locations. One of them is Watertown, which is part of today’s Waltham, located about 10 miles west of Boston. Others are Ipswich and Topsfield---adjacent towns about 20 miles north of Boston.

Membership in ICFA is open to descendants of Isaac Cummings and anyone who is interested in Isaac’s descendant families and the Association.

Annual memberships cost only $25 for an individual and $30 for a family, including spouse and children under 18. A Life Membership costing $500 includes the purchaser, spouse and children under 18 for the life of the purchaser.

Benefits include receiving the latest edition of the popular Cummings Chronicles newsletter, access to the ICFA Archives and Private Database of genealogical records, invitations to ICFA’s national Family Reunion event, other events, and research guidance or advice from other experienced members.

An important benefit of ICFA membership is access to an important collection of family history resources about many lines that are part of Isaac Cummings’ families. The ICFA Archives is a private, password-protected, easy-to-use database of genealogical family tree-like records containing information about more than 34,000 individuals descended from and related to the families of Isaac Cummings.

 The Archives also contain a collection of members’ family photos and images, some dating to the late 19th Century. There are also military records of Cummings men who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

Members can find various other documents and genealogy research materials relating to nearly four centuries of Cummingses who were part of the great migrations that settled the nation’s frontiers.

ICFA currently operates two DNA testing projects: The Y-DNA began in 2015, and the Autosomal DNA in 2021.

The ICFA Autosomal DNA Project, launched in 2021, describes DNA inherited from the 22 pairs of numbered chromosomes of both parents instead of only the Y sex chromosome of the father.

Using both types of DNA research, we can identify the potential DNA segments passed on through our Cummings ancestry.

ICFA publishes the Cummings Chronicles newsletter as a member information forum. This yearly report:

• provides historical reports about Isaac Cummings and his twelve-plus generations of American descendants,
• provides information about local and national family reunions,
• explains new findings from the Association’s expanding private DNA Projects, and
• keeps member families connected as part of an active network of Cummings genealogical researchers.

Members and friends of ICFA are encouraged to submit articles and news information of interest for publication.

The Isaac Cummings Family Association holds national reunions for its members on a biennial basis. Most of the gatherings have taken place in the Massachusetts coastal communities of Salem, Gloucester, Beverly and Danvers near where Isaac Cummings and his family lived in Ipswich and Topsfield.

Others were held in locations that were home to sponsoring members or of research interest to the group: Salt Lake City, Utah, Niagara Falls, New York, and Washington D.C.

Reunion programs include a range of genealogy and Cummings Family programs conducted by guest and member experts, bus tours of the local area and its family history research centers, a General Meeting to elect officers and review the Association’s status, plans and activities, and a grand banquet with entertainment.