Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes.I've done a separate page with what I know... and want to know... about the Liverpool Boyd connection.
The family, at least in the mid 1800s was also active in the sugar industry. To know more about that is currently my "greatest itch".
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I am also looking for pre-1900 information about families in my maternal past.... Bradley, Brewster, Broadley, Dingley, Lane, McKenney, Sanger, White, Wood. My maternal haplogroup is H4a1a1. I've had both HVR1 and HVR2 tested. See the separate page devoted to issues of my maternal line.
Here: information about searching for family history. Roughly speaking, (after the 'ad from your sponsor'!), this page is organized as follows:
A plug for a great site- WorldConnectbut first some DNA family history notes....
This page can also be accessed via http://tinyurl.com/boydhist, if you want a shorthand way to cite it.
Doing family history research via DNA is, to me, very exciting. If you have had your mitochondrial DNA sequenced, and you are trying to find contemporary cousins (however distant) that way, may I commend to you my directory of mtDNA data? (That will open in a new window or tab.)
First offer: If you are a male Boyd, or can demonstrate a male line back to a Boyd, and after you submit DNA for testing to FamilyTreeDNA, they notify me that we are a perfect match to 37 markers on the Y chromosome, I will reimburse you the cost of the 37 marker test.
Second offer: Sadly, mitochondrial DNA matching isn't as good at finding matches... or, rather, it is "too good". Even so, if you are added to my HVR1+HVR2 region matches after January 2010, (and didn't already know you were related to one of the four people already on my "matches" list!) I will reimburse you $50 of your testing costs.
(Updated 6/10) I believe you can start searching for people who share a paternal ancestor with you for $169, which gives you the 37-marker test. If we have a perfect match on 37 markers, I believe that you can merely pay the difference between the 37 marker test and the 67 marker test to get your test extended. I know that when I extended my testing, I didn't have to submit more DNA, and that the pricing for the "upgrade" was fair.
(Updated 6/10) Or you can have tests done about your matrilineal line. The entry level test here costs $149. (If you like what you find, for your mtDNA you can proceed to the really cool full sequence... you can know the whole story of your 16,000- odd sequence!). The simple test has, for me, already narrowed the field to just four potential matches. (It tests the SNPs in both HVR1 and HVR2.)
(Updated 6/10) Or you can start with the same tests, ordered together, for $299, a $19 saving.
Concerned about "issues" surrounding the submission of DNA samples? So was I. But eventually, I came to believe that FamilyTreeDNA handles those issues well. I worried about three things... Civil liberties issues- FamilyTree, last time I checked, said they'd not yet been forced to hand over an data. Getting medical insurance issues- With more and more insurers requiring a pre-insurance medical, including blood draw, we've "lost" this one already. Being "pestered" by other FamilyTree participants- I've been a member, in the "contact me if we have similar DNA" system for years. No problems yet... the system protects your email address.
I have signed the "FTDNA Release Form" that you will find mentioned in the Family Tree literature. (As should you!) So- as soon as you submit your release form, if we are a perfect match, we will both get emails.
You should also consider... carefully... joining various databases and projects. I believe that Y-Search and Mito-search are good. There may be others. See also the free"Genealogy-DNA" mailing list at Rootsweb if you are of a scientific persuasion. (They discuss the issues, not your specific DNA).
If, based on DNA evidence, you think that we may be related, either through our paternal, or through our maternal lines, you may wish to check the pages I've prepared with the details you will need....
I started my hunt by DNA with FamilyTreeDNA more by luck than design. In the years since, I've learned that there are many labs offering to test DNA... but I think FamilyTreeDNA is the best of them, by a wide margin in some cases. Not only do you need to be able to trust your lab with your information, but you also need tests which are done on the same bits of your Y-DNA and mtDNA as other people have had. Not all lab's tests are the same! Unless your tests "fit" the big databases, like the ones enabled by FamilyTreeDNA, you may not find the people who you match.
This page has been around since at least December of 1998... quite a bit longer, if I am not mistaken. And my search for my family history goes back to at least the 1980s. A certain amount of information was available, just from "family knowledge and legends", but it was many years before I was able to expand my knowledge much. As an encouragement to others, I will tell a few tales of "breakthroughs" over the years.
Since at least 1998, I've known of a "Leslie Cameron Boyd", a nephew of my great-grandfather Boyd... but most of what I knew was the name and that he was born 27 February 1883, Southgate, Middlesex, i.e. the London area. Since 1998, I've had a page on the internet asking for help in this matter, and a number of times, I've made enquiries with contemporary Leslie and Cameron Boyds. I'm not looking for John Smith, born 1500, for heaven's sake. Until April 2011, nothing, apart I would imagine from the odd census "hit". Then, in April 2011, after all that time, out of the blue, an email arrived from a non-relative complete stranger: "I am researching my own family tree but Les Boyd was a hugely influential figure in my mother's family and a great friend of my grandfather. I also have photos of Les Boyd with members of my family in the 1920s-30s. If you are interested in knowing more please contact me."
"Interested?" I think you can imagine! That researcher subsequently sent me some wonderful things. I've written more on a page for Leslie Cameron Boyd.
Learned for sure the name of my great-great-great grandfather and mother. I'd had the names previously... but, then, no "official" confirmation.
Well, the confirmation has been sent to me... by someone else who had John and Sarah Boyd as their great-great-great grandparents. (She lives British Columbia. We'd exchanged some emails previously)
The evidence is copies of baptismal registers... Details and another brother in the page I'll link to in a moment.
John and Sarah baptized a son, Robert Andrew (my antecedent,I believe, of whom I know a bit) in 1815. His brother, the other descendant's antecedent, William was baptized in 1817. (Born 8 March) Both baptized Parish of St James, Westminster, County of Middlesex. Today we would call that area part of central London. I suspect it was thought as such back then, too.
John listed as "Fruiterer", abode "Glasshouse Street", the bottom part of which has been swallowed up over the years in the expansion of Piccadilly Circus (NE side), but part of it remains, leading out of the north side of the circus.
Robert Andrew Boyd seems to have been born November 30, 1814. On 29 July 10 I double checked the information I had on Robert Andrew Boyd, George Boyd and William Boyd, born early 1800s, whose parents were John and Sarah, London. (And rounded out the day with a visit to the stunning Billy Elliot musical in the evening. You can't, alas, see a production in London at the moment (7/17), but you can buy a DVD of it! Be sure to get Billy Elliot with Elliot Hanna, not Jamie Bell. Jamie's version is the movie that inspired the musical. (You could, of course, get both!))
Pretty exciting... to me anyway!
In July 2002 I finally pinned down who my great grandfather Boyd's parents were: Robert Boyd and Mary Lunham, married in Berwickshire, Scotland, 1838. I looked for this information for many, many years (15- 25-ish.) I even asked one of Robert's grandchildren... who went all vague. I am still looking for more on Thomas Lunham, and now also for more on Robert and Mary. A vital part of the finding was the marvelous resource created by the Church of the Latter Day Saints with vast amounts of searchable data from the 1881 British census. When I found my ancestors, it was on a multi-CD copy of what you can now access across the internet. No internet, or nervous? An LDS Family History Center near you may be able to give you access to the CDs. I used them at an English county record office. Seek and ye shall find!
I have put some raw research notes from my researches on particular individuals and families onto the web, with a table of contents page to help you navigate the notes.
Hunting for family history can be a lot of fun. I wrote a short essay on some of my experiences, for your "non-productive" enjoyment.
From 14 people from not so long ago, I've not... yet... found a single descendant!! There must be one or two out there, surely???
Rupert Ainslie Boyd, son of Thomas Lunham Boyd, see below
Oliver Boyd, Cork, Ireland trader c.1860
Mary Olive Boyd b 1875 coj
John Robert Boyd b abt 1877 coj
Thomas Malcom Boyd b abt 1878 coj (Perhaps "Thomas Malcolm Boyd"?)
Percy Seville Boyd b abt 1879 coj (Not the near contemporary Percivil Boyd, alas!)
Ethel Muriel Boyd b abt 1881 coj
Gladys E Boyd b abt 1882 coj
Leslie Cameron Boyd b 1883 coj
Colin Ainslie Boyd b 1885 coj
Douglas Stewart Boyd b 1887 coj
Rebecca Gwendoline Boyd b 1891 coj
Sir John Boyd, b.1719, died 1800. Baronet. Director, East India Company. Danson, Kent. I know quite a bit about him; he was a sugar baron. Did he have any grandsons?
Archibald Boyd. In the 16 Feb 1856 edition of the Daily News, which was, I believe a London newspaper, there was, if I read it right, what we would today call an IPO's prospectus. One of the directors of the provisionally registered company was one "Archibald Boyd, Esq, Director of the Union Bank of London". What makes me want to know more about this Boyd is that another director of the venture was the man from whom my great-grandfather Boyd bought his house, in about 1880. (Added 4/10)
Son of Thomas Lunham Boyd. Born about 1890. Died Palermo, Italy, 8 Feb 1927, "Drowned while bathing", pp Harrow school register of 1951. I would love to see a newspaper article about the event, if anyone in Palermo (or elsewhere!) can did up a copy!
Seeking contact with any descendants.... he had MANY children. Born Cork, Ireland, abt 1847. Lived much of his life in London (Walthamstow, etc). Died Nov 1931. Not so long ago!!!
Looking for information on Jessie BOYD, dau of Robert Andrew BOYD.
One document I have shows her as Jessie Boyd Smith. 1881 census has her in England, living with her mother, as Jessie Boyd.
Probably lived in England after about 1850.
Looking for information on Rachael BOYD, dau of Robert Andrew BOYD. Born Cork, Ireland, abt 1856
Married Henry... or "Henery"(?) Hunt. Probably lived in England most of life.
Died after 1880.
Looking for information on Robert William BOYD, son of Robert Andrew BOYD. Born Walthamstow, London area, England, abt 1860.
Probably lived in England most of life. Died after 1871.
Looking for information on Gordon BOYD, son of Robert William BOYD.
Believe died after 1931... slim evidence.
Looking for information on Henry HUNT (or Henery HUNT), who married Rachael BOYD. She was b. abt 1856 in Ireland, but may have spent childhood or more in England.
(A moment in the history of my quest... to encourage those of you starting out...) At last! After at least 25 years to get even that far, in mid December 2000, I had two breakthroughs and one very promising new lead. I know have quite a bit of information about a Lunham line almost certainly doing business with my great grandfather, and the two families may even be inter-related. If you are a Lunham researcher, be sure to check out the stuff at WorldConnect (see item just down the page from here.
Here are some more notes on the history of my search for my family. You will hope I've been selective... I haven't. Many of the "big moments" are at least sketched. There's also more information, mostly of more recent triumphs, further up the page.
The Wayback Machine's earliest image of the page you are reading shows a page I edited in December 1998. On it, at that time, was....
I am interested in information about... Thomas L. Boyd, born in Cork, Ireland, 1849. Also siblings or parents: Brothers: John James Boyd .........Robert William Boyd .................and Ettie, wife of above) Sisters: Jessie Smith Boyd (That could be Jessie Boyd, married Smith) .........Rachel, Married Henry Hunt Grandson: Gordon Boyd Also interested in... Oliver Boyd, Cork, Ireland trader c.1860 Rebecca Gwendoline Boyd b 1891 Douglas Stewart Boyd b 1887 Colin Ainslie Boyd b 1885 Leslie Cameron Boyd b 1883 Mary Olive Boyd b 1875
TLB was my great-grandfather Boyd. I knew his son, my grandfather, and at least met most of his siblings, although my contact with most of them was very limited. Happily, I had a wonderful relationship with a wonderful great aunt, who would have eclipsed Margaret Rutherford's Miss Letitia Prism, had they ever entered the same room.
Of TLB's siblings, etc... little luck, despite many, many years of quite diligent searching.
Apologies to a few people who have been in touch over the years, with bits and pieces of information... I am going to try to expand this section in due course. Also, I had some hits in census records for some of the above, but have, in general found out almost nothing about most of them... and they, or their children, at least, are not from 200 years ago, for heaven's sake!
December 11th, 2000, I finally got good information on the date of the marriage of TLB's parents, and the information you would expect to be associated with that. Thank you Church of the Latter Day Saints and the IGI.
Also about 2000, a wonderful "coup de internet" put me in touch with a lovely lady whose grandmother eloped to escape the proposal of marriage she feared (probably with reason) was about to be sprung on her by my grandfather. (The story had never been mentioned in my family. Sadly, by the time I heard it, there were few people who might have known it to ask. Her family were, at the time, mostly connected with mine through mutual business interests... but there were marriage ties in the background, too.
Around 2007(?) a kind researcher at English Heritage sent me some very interesting information about TLB's business activities in London, c. 1890 (I think it was... this from memory, not notes.)
I've lost track of the date... I think it was about 2008... I had a wonderful communication from a lady descended, as I remember it, from a brother of TLB's father.
So... however long you have been searching, however hopeless it seems, remember that the body of information on the internet grows every day, the population of researchers is ever changing, and, if you put the right requests up, someday you might get an exciting email, too!
Be careful... keep a little back, especially about recently deceased people, and certainly about living people... but if you are sensible, you should come to no harm.
This would be the place, too, to plead with you to participate in the DNA family history projects. There are further notes family history research by DNA at the top of this page.
A few places to try...
I said "except as noted"... and this is thus "noted": My thanks to the nice people at https://www.dnaweekly.com. (They took the trouble to alert me to a dated link. They hae LOTS of Good Stuff for you... among other things an article on who you might want to use for DNA testing, for instance. (By the way, MyHeritage seems to have strong ties to Israel. While the oppression of the Palestinians continues, personally I have little interest in sending money to any Israeli operation.)
Cyndi' s List: a long established resource for family history searchers.
GenUKi: Especially useful if you are searching for British antecedents.
The BBC website is full of good stuff in general, and genealogy is not neglected. I have a link to a specific page, but the site is pretty dynamic, so your best bet is probably to start at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
and follow (today's) links.
Another good starting point is...
www.bbc.co.uk/history/
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'Though I haven't used it myself, I saw a glowing review of Personal Ancestral File (it was version 4, at the time). It is free, forever... no registration fee, no limited function. The software comes from a reputable source. The following is according to the review:
You obtain it from www.familysearch.org/. At one time, the deep link URL was www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/. It was a 5mb download. Maybe you can order a CD for a handling charge.
You can import from or export to GEDCOM. (Trust me, you want this!)
Obvious fields are provided, e.g. DOB, but you can add fields if you want to, e.g. "Was he/ she diabetic?"
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There was a fascinating resource at http://www.bridgemedia.net/genweb/pedrick.asp, but that link is broken 6/06. It let you 'look' at gravestones of many Broughtons, Pedricks, and others, all collected from a graveyard in Marblehead, MA. You may be able to find the same pages at a different address, via Google.
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If you are trying to find information about specific family names, visit: The Genealogy Forum. The following would take you to an excellent newsgroup-like service for people interested in the surname 'Boyd':http://www.genforum.com/boyd/ Try the surname of your choice.
You can post an eddress if you want private replies to your posts. GenForum have a great system to spoil things for spammers... your eddress is held as a graphic!
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(Link broken 6/06)- At the following site, a list is maintained of links to sites devoted to specific surnames. You can request a link to your surname page http://familyhistory.flash.net/surnames1.html
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You might want to consider using the following two programs. I liked the fact that each did what I expected it would do, simply, elegantly. At 11/07, both are still shareware.
The first is Kith and Kin. It is a specialized database manager. It displays your family tree graphically. You can drag the family boxes around the screen so that your tree is displayed as you wish. It is able to export to the GEDCOM data format.... which seems to be 'the' way to share genealogical data with others. It can also import from GEDCOM.
Oh wow!!! I've just discovered that Kith and Kin will do MUCH more than I would ever have started to hope it would. With the GUI, I can select some or all of the families in my Kith and Kin database, and a few clicks later have a complete set of web pages ready for upload, holding everything I want you to know. There are all sorts of options, to let you tweak what gets put in the web pages.
Kith and Kin is at this URL. It is shareware ("try before you buy"), and only costs about $60 if you decide "it is for you". Besides producing the graphic charts (quite configurable to your preferences), the program can do other reports, including drop line charts and textual reports. You may want to buy "TreeDraw" with it. Either way, it is not cheap... about $90 for the two together, at 11/07... but Kith and Kin program is a MAJOR help to doing family history research.
SpanSoft (producers of K&K) also offer TreeDraw, a specialist graphics editor for creating high quality genealogical drop-line charts. If you buy your copy at the same time as you buy K&K, you get a price break. PC Plus awarded the program an award.
From the quality of K&K, I am tempted to try Spansoft's 'Shop til You Drop' (weekly shopping list aid... no, don't tell me you've done the shopping without a computer perfectly well all these years. In the first place it only costs $10. Secondly... remember when people were saying 'I've got a typewriter, what would I use a wordprocessor for?'?)... AND... I am tempted to try their 'Slide Librarian' package. (Photograph catalogue manager. I see no reason it wouldn't be fine for all types of images, despite name.)
The second piece of shareware I would commend is GED2HTML. You give the program a GEDCOM data file, and it prepares HTML pages. (If you don't have Kith and Kin, which can create web pages by itself, or choose not to use Kith and Kin for this.) Each page shows a family, and if you click on a family member, you are taken to another page based on that individual. It is the most elegant way I have seen to 'surf' a family tree. You will see pages of genealogy on the internet with a credit to GED2HTML in the footnotes. It was once free, but is now shareware ("try before you buy")... $20 to register, if you like it, at 6/06... and still $20 at 11/07.
Visit http://www.starkeffect.com/ged2html/ for GED2HTML.
(With GED2HTML you once got... and maybe you still do... a data file with MANY (was it 3000?) of the kings, queens and kin of Europe. You can export it into Kith & Kin and have many amusing hours trying to sort the rat's nest out into a neat table... a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, and very enlightening in regard to Europe's history.)
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In a discussion about what software is popular, aussiejohn (johnsmith@interact.net.au) wrote:
I use Cumberland Family Tree V2.22 and it is a real winner. The only problem might be that it is a Windows program, but definitely a good one. Before 9/2011, they used to have a web page at http://www.cf-software.com where you could download the program for evaluation purposes. (At 9/11 that redirects to an oriental mortgage provider!)
Others suggested....
PAF and Brothers Keeper. The latter was said to be an excellent program but with fields which are too limiting. E.g. to enter several places that people lived was not possible without going into notes that were again limited to 5 lines or so. The author of those comments said he then changed to Cumberland Family Tree (see above) and was delighted with the program and with the email support from Ira Lund, whose answers are said always to be very prompt. Plaudits were also given to John Steed for Brothers Keeper support.
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A site full of general 'how to' information, valuable projects you can contribute to, etc: Click here for USGenWeb.
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For those of you with Irish conmnections.Existed when I checked, but I don't know how good, etc, they are:
Ulster Historical Foundation
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Rootsweb has all sorts of specific lists. (There are numerous Boyd entries.)
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Online Census Data: Transcriptions and Indexes for Federal and State Censuses, Tax Lists, Military Rosters, etc.
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Ron Taylor used to have a UK Census Finding Aids and Indexes, Indexes to over 2.2 million names from the UK Census (mainly 1851). Sadly, at 6/06, that information is not at the URL I had. See if you can find it with Google?
Last name,First Name, County of Birth, County where
found and year of census from which record originates.
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Once upon a time http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/www/indiana/genealogy/mirr.html took you to an archive at the Indiana State Library, Genealogy Division. It was a database to an Index of Indiana Marriages Through 1850. (There were 263 Boyds listed.) At 8/08, the link was dead, but maybe you can find a new one.
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Now you can attach a message to any of the more than
61 million records in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) at
RootsWeb by using a "post-em". You can, for instance, attach notes to the records of your relatives providing researchers with a direct link to you; add
background information on an individual in the database, such
as pointers to other records relating to that individual; or
add a correction to an incorrect record. Check the records of
individuals of interest to you often. Someone recently might
have left a note there for you. To add a note to a record, do
a search and click on "Post-em" at the end of a record at:
Rootsweb SSDI link
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For "group sheets", sent in by people for many surnames:
Yates Publishing (There were lots of Boyds)
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Once upon a time, there were some obvious free resources at Ancestry.com. While I couldn't find them 6/06, Ancestry is certainly a very well established site. They offer some advice for free, and you might well find that spending some money with them was rewarding. Also, I would think that a site with Ancestry's reputation could be trusted with credit card details.
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From Jeannette Savaiano (jsavaiano@earthlink.net):
"I have a bible which contains a marriage certificate of Lucy Lee Boyd, from Canton Ohio. If anyone can identify other specifics (to authenticate their claim) I would be willing to see it go to the appropriate family."
What a kind offer! Pity more people don't help others thus!
For many years, Rich Boyd has been building Clan Boyd Society International, which has a huge site full of information relating mainly to Boyds.
===I used to be a member of the Boyd webring, but the code for that kept hi-jacking my site.... taking you to their site when you tried to visit mine. If you want to visit some other Boyd sites, you could try http://ss.webring.com/navbar?f=l;y=ng10066504jan;u=1004413777777, which will open in a new tab or window if you click on it.
N.B.: The search engine just looks through the web site for the words you enter. It cannot answer "Which program is fastest?". Nor does it search my SheepdogSoftware or SheepdogGuides sites.
To email this page's editor, Tom Boyd.... Editor's email address. Suggestions welcomed! Please cite "BoydHis.htm".
Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes.
AND passes...
