I'll explain: I recently read the physician by Noah Gordon where the main protagonist, Rob J. Cole, an Englishman from the 960s, travels to Persia to learn more about medicine and eventually ends up setting shop in the Scottish Highlands with his Scottish wife and her family.
Now when I finished the book, I realised that I had read somewhere that there are some families in the UK and that the Cole family is one of them. However, I don't know where I've heard that, and I wanted to know if such is true.
Thanks!
there are some families in the UK and that the Cole family is one of them.
I'm slightly confused by what you mean here. There are a great number of families in the UK and 'Cole' is a relatively common surname, although there is also an aristocratic 'Cole' family, from Hampshire, who have contributed a number of army officers and financiers, including Alfred Clayton Cole, governor of the Bank of England from 1911-1913.
To be more specific though, the 'Cole' family shows up in the 12th century, along with the overwhelming majority of surnames in England, which only come over with the Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon naming conventions don't tend to use surnames, relying more on epithets based on deeds, role or origin when needing to distinguish: Alcuin 'of York', Ælfric 'of Evesham' or Eadgar 'Ætheling' for example. Actually, anybody called Robert would also be quite uncommon for mid-10th century England. Old English has a number of 'Robert' cognates - Hrodberht, Hrœdbœrð - but the name in 'Robert' form again comes to England with the 1066 conquest.