I’m Lyn (formerly Marlene Helen Colloff) and I am descended from the Joseph line on my father’s (Colloff) side of the family and from William Wells on my Mother’s side. I live in Birmingham, West Midlands UK.

My thanks to John Colloff and Trevor Rogers, also to Ken, Mildred and Roy Colloff for their earlier research into the Colloff name.

I have received an enormous amount of help and information from John Colloff and Trevor Rogers (of the same line), who are also researching the name. I would like to thank them for their time and patience in passing information to me over many months. We now communicate regularly, exchanging information, and would love to hear from members of the Colloff family who we don’t know yet, including those outside the UK.

I would also like to thank

My friend David Phillips, who, for many years, has been researching his own family name, and has been a great help in advising me on research methods as well as collecting information for my family tree and helping me make sense of it.

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My interest in the family history began when, during a visit to my mother’s house, we started looking through some old family pictures. My mother could name all the people in the pictures and I found her recollections fascinating. I started asking her questions about my father’s side of the family since I could not remember much about them, other than most of the male members were in the building trade. Some of the people I spoke to thought that the name had a Russian connection but family members thought it might be of German origin.

Whilst surfing the net one day I found a link to a site which contained a memorial to a Geoffrey Colloff. This site was managed by his brother, John Colloff, and since it noted his e-mail address, I duly contacted him. After a few short messages back and forth we realized that we were cousins. It transpired that John had been conducting research into the name for many years and, as a member of The Guild of One Name Studies, was the registered researcher into the name Colloff.

The information collected by the other Colloffs inspired my interest further into the Colloff name and its ancestry. I am enjoying the rapport we have between us and it’s a great pleasure for me to be working alongside them.