This book is about the Colloraffi Family, with the following variations in spelling:

1. Collorafi - the most popular spelling of our name. For the most part, the single "f" is used by families from Librizzi, Vallone Vina, San Piero Patti and Patti. However, the ancestor of our family from this area - Don Basilio Colloraffi - spelled his name with 2 f's, in the late 1700's.

2. Colloraffi - the way that the name is spelled throughout this book for simplicity, since it is the way that my family spells the name. Our family living in and from the Sant' Agata di Militello and Caronia area spell the name with 2 "f"s. The branch of our family from Salina usually spells the name this way,also.

3. Cullorafi is the way that the name evolved in Patti. The Patti part of our family now use the spelling Collorafi. However, until about 1860, the name was spelled with a "u" instead of an initial "o". The same people born Cullorafi, became Collorafi, as time went on and the Collorafi spelling was adopted.

4. Colorofe is the way the name was spelled in the 1681 cenus of the Militello area. There were still some families using this spelling in area of Patti in the mid 1800's.

5. Colliarofi, Collorafici, Colorife, Colorofo, Collorafero, Colorafi, Culluraffi, Colorafia, Collorofe, Colorofi, are other ways that I have seen our name spelled in various records in Sicily. However, most of these are either "mispellings" or the spelling that a certain mayor would use for a generation or two. The majority of our family now spell the name as - Collorafi. Few families, less than 20, including mine, use the Colloraffi version.

Vallone di Vina is sometimes used as one word, such as ValloneVina. This seems to be where our first Colloraffi family is found. Information is included as part of Librizzi, as far as records are concerned. The Colloraffi family continues to live in this mountain community. These are the descendants of Domenico Collorafi and Anna Pizzino, who were land owners, mill owners and farmers. Some of these descendants now live in the USA, Australia, and Germany.

San Piero Patti and Librizzi are small mountain towns where farm land was passed through many generations of our Collorafi family. Part of our family continues to live here.

Patti was first founded as a Greek settlement and latter became a walled city under the Normans (Norse men). There was a strong French influence in this area which may be the reason that one of our earliest ancestors is named Giac! The Collorafi family that lived here were primarily merchants, especially fruit merchants. The women worked as spinners and weavers. A large segment of this family emigrated to Tunisia around 1900 and this branch, for the most part, now lives in France, Italy and Canada. Another branch came to New York around 1900. Another branch continues to live in Patti.

Sant' Agata di Militello, Salina, and Caronia are other areas that we find members of our family. The records for Salina and Caronia are not available for research at this time, but I believe that this branch is closely connected with the Sant' Agata di Militello part of our family, with members having been born in Caronia in the early 1800's ,where I suspect the family owned a farm. However, there is also evidence that this family has strong links with the Librizzi part of our family and we have records of part of this family coming to Sant' Agata di Militello from Librizzi, where they were born. It would seem that the family owned farm land there. This branch worked as barbers and cobblers in the city. The women worked as spinners and weavers. Part of this branch continues to live in Italy with another part emigrating to the USA. One branch moved to Eritria, Africa and then back to Italy. For the most part, this is the only part of our family that now spell the name as Colloraffi - with two f's.