My Name is John Kellum. I was born in the UK in 1953. I put this website together in the hope that we can bring all the ‘Kellum’s together and complete a family tree for all ‘Kellum’s’  and their partners/Spouses worldwide

I started to research my family tree in 1990. To begin with I used a Genealogy company in England and to be fair, they were able to provide me with some very interesting information  in the initial stages.  However, it soon became clear that they were not going to be able to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together and they hit a brick wall, particularly with the search for information on Harry Howard Kellum, my grandfather. I spent quite a while trying to find out information on him myself, and was successful in obtaining his army records from the Canadian Army. But, once again my search was restrictive and basically going nowhere else.

And then someone invented the Internet.

I knew my grandfather had lived in a place called Delhi in Canada and so I decided to check the Internet to see if Delhi had a web site. Unbelievably it did. I contacted the Mayors office explaining that I was researching my Family History and received a reply saying that I should contact Irene Hopper, as she was an expert in this subject. I contacted Irene and the rest is history, well not all because hopefully the Kellum name will live on into the future and who ever has a copy of this document will hopefully carry on adding names.

Although this document is for the ‘Kellum’s and all of their descendants, we should all remember Irene because without her help, and what must have been hours of work, this document would not have been completed and the Kellums’ in England would never have seen a photograph of their Grandfather and his family. Sadly Irene passed away on 17/04/2013 [ Tillsonburg, ON OBITUARIES] one month prior to a visit I was making to Canada where upon I was intending to go visit her.

My thanks also goes out to both Carl and Bill Cunningham who sent me a numerous photographs of Kellums.

My initial research went back to 1787 and starts with Lebius Kellum. I was later able to gather more information and so far have been able to put together a tree on the Kellum’s that goes as far back to xxxx but with little detail or no supporting documentation. I would be very grateful for to anyone who can provide me with details so that we can make this a complete history of the Kellum Family.

But first I would like to begin with the Kellum Early Origins. Despite there being many companies that would like to sell you the ‘Family Crest’, my research has shown that in fact there is actually no such official crest for the name Kellum. This information was provided to me by the College of Arms, Queen Victoria St, London. They tell me that only a very small minority of families have ever possessed a properly recorded coat of arms, and in any given case, the chances are therefore against [Kellum’s] discovering an entitlement of this kind. Never the less, I have shown ‘the crest’ on my web site. 

Kellum is a name that was carried to England in the great wave of migration from Normandy following the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Kellum family lived at Kelham in Nottinghamshire, a parish northwest of Newark. The name Kellum is derived from the Old Norse expression for at the ridges.