Brief Life History of Alexander
When Alexander Cunningam was born on 8 April 1758, in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, John Cunningam, was 35 and his mother, Margaret Tailor, was 38.
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Family Time Line
Sources (1)
- Alexander Cunningam, "Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950"
Parents and Siblings
World Events (6)
1802 · John Playfair publishes summary of James Hutton's theories of geology.
In 1802, John Playfair published the Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. His influence was by James Hutton’s knowledge of the earth’s geology.
1815
The defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo marks the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon defeated and exiled to St. Helena.
1820 · """The """"Radical War""""."""
The Scottish Insurrection was a week of strikes and unrest with demands for reform in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The economic downturn after the Napoleonic war ended, brought increasing unrest with the Artisan workers in Scotland, seeking action to reform the government. But the insurrection was largely forgotten about, as attention was focused on the better publicized Radical events in England.
Name Meaning
Scottish: habitational name from the province of Cunningham in Ayrshire, first recorded in 1153 in the form Cunegan, a Celtic name of uncertain origin. The spellings in -ham, first recorded in 1180, and in -ynghame, first recorded in 1227, represent a gradual assimilation to the English placename element -ingham.
Irish: surname adopted from Gaelic Ó Cuinneagáin ‘descendant of Cuinneagán’, a personal name from a double diminutive of the Old Irish personal name Conn meaning ‘leader, chief’. This name is also adopted for Ó Connacháin, a variant of Ó Connagáin ‘descendant of Connagán’, from a diminutive of the personal name Conn.
History: A family of this name (see 1 above) can be traced back to Wernebald de Cunynghame, who was granted the manor of Cunningham by Hugh de Morville in the early 12th century.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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