My European Ancestry
Written on May 7, 2026
When I was young, my father told me and my siblings that our family came from Ireland. I didn't know it at the time, but he was talking about the "Rose" surname, the maiden name of his mother, my paternal grandmother.
It wasn't until years later that I discovered the origin of the "Cunningham" surname. Although I'm interested in knowing about all of my ancestors, I'm much more interested in the lineage of the paternal side of the family.
The Cunningham Surname
The Cunningham surname originated in Scotland. The Wikipedia page on Clan Cunningham makes that abundantly clear, although it was spelled differently back then. The motto for the clan is "Over Fork Over".
My daughter-in-law, Diane, was stationed with the Air Force in England in the mid-2010s. My older son, Joe, was with her. Sometime during the tour of duty, Joe bought some memorabilia on the surname at some shop in England. He bought a second set for me.
Included in the set were records of indentured servants that traveled from Ireland to North America before the United States gained independence from England and after.
After I traced the surname as far back as I could at multiple genealogy websites, I couldn't find a match to go with the birthdate for "Samuel Cunningham", who was born in 1749 and died in 1781. He and his wife, Jane Cresson, only had one child.
It's likely that Samuel died in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783. It's also possible he died from one of the many infectious diseases that weren't curable or treatable back then. The only record of his death is the year.
Slave Ownership
None of the genealogy records I discovered uncovered anything about slavery. That doesn't imply there weren't any Cunninghams that owned slaves, but there may not have been any in my direct lineage that owned any.
When Negro slaves gained their freedom, many of them (possibly all of them) took the surnames of their former masters. This is one of the reasons there are many Negros in the United States who share my surname.
Some former slaves may have interbred with races other than Negros, but that's merely speculation. It would take more research to confirm it than I care to put the effort into doing.
My Ancestry Doesn't Matter
It doesn't matter any more than my Native American ancestry matters. While I was tracing Jane's ancestry, I noticed that her ancestors migrated from France. My wife, Josie, went to Paris with Joe and his family in 2015. I was in the Philippines.
They had planned to go to Scotland, but circumstances prevented it from happening. I would like to go there someday, if only to see the "Cunninghame" part of Ayrshire.
Image by Celtus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons