There have been many attempts to trace the origins of the McComsey/McCumsey name by family members in the USA. The problem seems to arise that the first records of anyone using one of those names is from the early 1700s and they could not read or write.

There are a few other spellings; McCumsie in a census. For years I was told that our progenitor was sent away from Scotland by Cromwell for being a horse thief, (or livestock of some sort.) But other than the year that McComsey appears in Pennsylvania, I have no evidence of that statement.

There have been two theories that I've encountered: one is that the name is derived from Scottish McComie or MacKenzie and the other that it is derived from Irish McComiskey.

For those of you that have done this for a while, how would I go about trying to make the connection to find the true roots of my surname?

As a side note; my maternal grandmother's last name is Sutherland and part of the Scottish which settled in Southwest Virginia so that's the tartan I choose to wear nowadays.