Boyd’s Inhabitants of London & Boyd’s Family Units

• Collection: 70,000 handwritten sheets, each dealing with a single family
• Date range: 1200–1946
• Compiled by: Percival Boyd from a miscellany of sources
• Held by: the Society of Genealogists

The aim of this project is to:

• Create profiles for all family members listed on the sheets and link families together
• Link all profiles to this project
• Expand upon the information contained on the sheets
• Correct and note errors

Alphabetical index of main profiles

• Boyd's Inhabitants of London Index
• Boyd's Family Units Index

About the Collection

Boyd's Inhabitants of London

A collection of 60,000 handwritten sheets, each dealing with a single London family. Mostly covering the period of 16th to 18th centuries though extending from the 13th until well into the 20th centuries.

The Inhabitants of London was usually, but not always, a citizen of London. A sheet typically shows as a minimum the name of the man, the parish where he lived in London, and the date of his marriage. Many sheets show far more information, however, which can include: names of father and mother: names of mother's parents: wife's name and place she was living at the time of marriage; date and place of birth; date and place of death; date and place of marriage; notes on education and occupation; a note regarding the person's will; children's names, dates of birth/baptism, marriage and to whom.

Boyd's Family Units

A collection of just over 10,000 hand-written sheets, each dealing with a single family. Boyd's introduction to the first (of 34) volumes states that 'this ... volume consists almost entirely of:

• The families of members of the Drapers Company of London
• Family Bibles from Vol.XII of Crisps Fragmenta Genealogica.

In contrast to the Inhabitants of London, the geographic coverage of the Family Units is very wide: while the majority of families are from within England, there are many from Scotland, the USA, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere. The families overseas generally have strong links to places in England. There are often large sequences of records from specific counties; Yorkshire seems to have a particularly large number of records. A large proportion – around a third – of the families in Boyd's Family Units are London-based.

The entire collection is available at the subscription website findmypast.co.uk.