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, including Watertown, part of today’s Waltham about 10 miles west of Boston, Ipswich and Topsfield, adjacent towns about 20 miles north of Boston. It is believed that Isaac and other Cummings family members are buried in Topsfield where he lived the longest and until his death. While his descendants remained largely in Massachusetts during early generations, by the time of the American Revolution they had spread throughout New England and soon headed west as the country opened to expansion.

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 $400 includes the purchaser, spouse and children under 18 for the life of the purchaser. Benefits include receiving thelatest edition of the popularCummings Chroniclesnewsletter, access to the ICFA Archives and private Database of genealogical records, invitations to ICFA’s national Family Reunion event and other events, and research guidanceand 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 centerpiece of the ICFA Archives is a private, password-protected 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. This easy-to-use online resource is available only to ICFA members and has been carefully curated and reviewed for accuracy. The Archives also contain a collection of members’ family photos and images(some dating to the late 19th Century), military records of Cummings men who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, and various other documents and genealogy research materials relating to nearly four centuries of Cummings who were part of the great migrations that settled the nation’s frontiers.

ICFA currently operates one DNA project and is planning another.The ICFA Y-DNA Project was launched for members in 2015 in association with the genetic genealogy firm Family Tree DNA as a companion to ICFA’s traditional genealogical research archives. The Y-chromosome is a powerful genetic tool. Because only males carry a Y chromosome, the project collects and analyzes the Y-DNA test results of men believed to be Isaac’s direct line descendants. Every male descendant of Isaac carries a Y chromosome that, with occasional mutations over the centuries, is the same as that carried by Isaac and his ancestors. More than fiftymen now participate in the project. The effort enables participants (and their families) to prove their biological connection to Isaac and one another using a distinctive genetic signature only carried by Isaac’s male descendants. The data collected also allows researchers to explore the origins of Isaac’s English ancestors dating to thousands of years in the past.The ICFA Autosomal DNA Project is planned for launch in 2021.Autosomal DNA is a term describing DNA inherited from the 22 pairs of numbered chromosomes of both parents as opposedto the X and Y sex chromosomes.Autosomal tests are the most common tests used today and are provided by several companies. Theyprovide matches with genetic “cousins” and infer a person’s geographical origins based on their genetic ancestry.The Association has already started to gather “Cummings Cousins” autosomal test results that will hopefully lead to an online project where tested members can collaborate and compare results.

ICFA publishes the Cummings Chronicles newsletter as a member information forum. It features 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. Nearly half ICFA’s membership signed up for the 2019 Reunion in Salem, Massachusetts, and a sampling of photos taken during the four-day affair can be found here. 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. Plans for a 2021 Reunion in Wisconsin, where groups of Isaac’s descendants settled in the 1800’s during the nation’s great western migrations, are still under consideration due to public health uncertainties related to the covid-19 pandemic