Letter from G. E. Valley Jr. to Betty Cummins on where her husband's line might fit among the Smyrna Cummins family, mentioning the Cummins Family Association of Hayward, California.

[Notebook p. 9. GEV's typed letter to Betty Cummins, page 1, pasted in.] GEORGE E. VALLEY, JR. 607 MAIN STREET, CONCORD, MA 01742 617 369 5692

July 1, 1986

Ms. Betty Cummins 308 Hermitage Drive Elkton MD. 21921

Dear Ms. Cummins:

Thank you very much for your recent letter and the enclosures. I am glad to learn that you have recovered from your auto accident.

Your husband was nearly of my own age (I was born in 1913), and could have been of the same generation of Cummins, or the one immediately following or preceding mine.

I consulted a court record that happens to list all the offspring of John Cummins, the wealthy and powerful family leader of the 1820's in Smyrna. Since your husband seems not to have thought himself to be related to my grandfather's brother, there is no other niche in the John Cummins line into which your husband's family can fit, nor do the names of his grandfather and great grandfather fit any of the known offspring of John Cummins.

I therefore examined the generation of John Cummins himself, for your husband may have sprung from one of John's brothers. The possible candidates are: Timothy Cummins III, 1757-1823; George Cummins, 1759-1827; and Daniel Cummins, 1761-1788. Of these I know only a little, mostly about the famous son of George Cummins, one of the Cummins's in the essay I enclosed in my last letter. I don't know if the others had any children or what their names were. I shall ask Professor Hancock, who is editing Mrs Frances D. Cummins's manuscript, if he has run across the names of your husband's grandfather and great

[Notebook p. 10. Page 2 of the letter to Betty Cummins.] TO Betty Cummins 2 G.E.VALLEY

grandfather.

It will be autumn before Hancock gets my letter and answers it; we'll see what turns up.

It is possible that your husband came from a different immigrant line than the Smyrna family. There are a large number of Cummins lines, some of them both famous and powerful. There is a society in California, The CUMMINS FAMILY ASSOCIATION, 28646 Harvey Avenue, Hayward California 94544, which proclaims in its brochure: "The Cummins family was once one of the most powerful families in Europe." The director of this society is Avalon Cummins.

The Scots immigrant from whom all the Smyrna Cummins's were descended was Timothy, a hat maker who got rich keeping a tavern and speculating in real estate.

Sincerely, [signed] George Valley George E. Valley, Jr. [handwritten:] VLCME7