On Tuesday, September 5, 2000, RT Cetan <cunrue@cobweb.net> wrote: > If from Scotland it is from the Plant----Cummin...a spice...On our > family badge is the plant.The oldest form of the name in England is > "Comyn" and the family was closely allied with William the Conqueror. > Our ancestors named Cummins were Normans who came to Scotland from > Comines in Flanders.. Are you sure the name came from the plant, or is that just a case of adopting a plant with a sound-alike name? The French name for the spice cumin seems to also be cumin, and babble.altavista.com doesn't provide an English translation for Comines. S R C A cott obert ranston nderson phssra@physics.emory.edu