1 Aug 2005: In Orland, California, on July 17th, the family gathered for a sad event. My cousin Kevin Llayne Boyd's memorial service was held at the First Lutheran Church. Kevin passed away on July 12th after a sudden illness. Although he lived but 44 short years, Kevin accomplished many good things and will be remembered with much love by his family and many friends.

20 Oct 2004: On October 16th, Charles T. Boyd branch members gathered for another celebration. We celebrated the 80th birthday of my uncle. His children put on a surprise birthday party for him. Although he claimed that he knew something was going on, the number of people did surprise him. His family and friends shared stories about him which were very entertaining. It was a great evening.

18 Jul 2004: On July 12th, members of the Charles T. Boyd branch of the Boyd family gathered together. The occasion was a celebration of my uncle's 70th birthday. The weather was great. The company was great. Hello to everyone who made the gathering. It was wonderful to see all of you. I'm glad you're visiting this website.

3 Oct 2002: EvaBelle sent me the text of a postcard from her father, William Boyd, to his wife-to-be, Edith Mavety. It is posted under Research on the Letters I page. We don't know yet what year Matthew and his wife Annie went to Alabama. They were married in 1907 in Minnesota. The next record is Matthew's 1910 death certificate in Alabama. William's postcard places them in the South in January of 1910.

9 Aug 2002: Matthew Boyd's death certificate arrived from Alabama. The info on it is posted under Research in the Death Records section. This info was also added to Matthew Boyd's Chronologies page. Go to Home Page and click on Chronologies and then click on Matthew Boyd Family to see this info.

5 Aug 2002: I added notations of children to the Chronologies page. I also added Kate Hamilton as possibly David Boyd's first wife, along with daughter Margaret. We still need documentation to prove this marriage.

21 Jun 2002: Another photo has been posted. This one of William Crabbe Boyd and his family in Ireland was sent to EvaBelle in the early 1930's. I thank my daughter for doing some major touching up of the photo. Go to Chronologies, find William Crabbe Boyd Family and click on #23. Also William Crabbe Boyd's family and William's brother, James Boyd, are now listed on the Chronologies page.

29 May 2002: A generous individual from Kalispell, MT, has sent me the newspaper death notice for David and Minnie Boyd's oldest daughter Grace which appeared shortly after her death in 1907. Go to Research and find Obituaries and then click on "Image."

23 Apr 2002: On the Home page, new information has been added to the lineages list in the gray box. Thanks to Sue and EvaBelle's efforts, we have interesting extracts from Lillie Boyd's letters, 1967-1980, on the website. Go to Research and then click on "Letters IV."

5 Apr 2002: New postings include three letters and two postcards written by David's and Matthew's brother William Crabbe Boyd. This was the brother who never set foot in America but remained in Ireland and achieved great success as an educator. Go to Research and then click on "Letters II & Letters III."

4 Apr 2002: The first of the photos from EvaBelle and Sue are posted. Go to the Chronologies page to access them. At a later time, I'll get the photos touched up better for viewing, but I just wanted to get some of them up now.

17 Mar 2002: I did lots of organizing and some housecleaning on the website the last few days. I'm getting ready to work with the photographs provided by EvaBelle and scanned and e-mailed to me by her daughter Sue. I have no estimate of when the photos will be posted, but I hope soon. May I add, this is very exciting. There's some wonderful photos of relatives.

11/12 Mar 2002: More records have been added to the Research section. Find them on the Research page under Obituaries, Death Records, and the new Letters category. Also, many of the chronologies have been updated and expanded.

9 Mar 2002: Three new chronologies have been posted to the Chronologies page. These are for John Boyd, David Boyd and Charles T. Boyd. These are incomplete and more postings will follow.

5 Mar 2002: On 25 Feb 2002 a miracle happened. I was contacted by a 3rd cousin, Sue, in Michigan who said she and her mother are descendants of David's brother Matthew Boyd. Her mother, EvaBelle, is the daughter of Matthew's son William A. Boyd. EvaBelle has spent much time collecting information on the Boyd family in the United States and in Northern Ireland. She has given me permission to post many of her findings to this website. Speaking for everyone, we thank these two women for their generous sharing and hours of time to make this available to all us kin. So, please spread the word and check back periodically for new postings.

2 Apr 2001: Homestead Records have been added to the Research page. These are David Boyd's records on his homestead at Round Butte, filed on in 1910. The first three documents have been posted. The packet is large and will take a while to post.

22 Mar 2001: On the Research page is a new category of records: Burial and Funeral Home Records. Jim Funke in Polson, MT, along with several others, is putting the Lake View Cemetery burial records into a database. I took him up on his offer to do lookups. He found records for David, David's second wife Anna L., and William Henry Boyd, son of David and first wife Minnie. He also has records from Rentz Funeral Home in Polson and found our Boyds in those records too. Everything he found is posted to the new page.

6 Mar 2001: A page of land records is now available on the Research page. These land records were extracted from Antrim Co., Michigan, and show all the Boyd, Doolittle, and Keat/Keet (Kates) entries I could find. Matthew and Ida C. Boyd are included, as well as various Doolittles. The Doolittles may be related through marriage to our Boyd family. One source states that Matthew's first wife (no first name given) was a Doolittle. I have found nothing further to support or refute this one bit of info. "Kates" was the surname of Matthew's second wife Annie.

11 Jan 2001: A link to the Flathead Co., MTGenWeb, site has been added to the Link page. David Boyd resided there in Somers. Also near Somers is the Bethel Cemetery where his daughter Grace is buried. The history of the cemetery appears on the Flathead Co. site.

5 Jan 2001: In my research, I use charts listing the events, arranged in chronological order, in ancestors' lives. I thought it would be useful to others to put these charts on the site. The first went up today for Matthew Boyd's branch of the family. As I mentioned in my note at the bottom of the page, the charts are based on records and "educated guesses." They work well as guides, but aren't necessarily completely accurate. With this comment, the research goes on, and who knows how the charts will change along the way.

19 Oct 2000: The last exciting development in the Boyd Family history happened in August when my family stopped by the Bethel Cemetery in Somers, Montana. Several years ago, on our first visit, we found the cemetery overgrown and neglected. On this visit, the grounds had been cleaned up so the graves were easily visible. I wasn't surprised by the change because I'd read a news article sent from Montana about a new association caring for the cemetery. Another surprise waited for me, however.

We walked around, looked at the graves, and took pictures. In the far back of the cemetery, I glanced at a marker. I almost fainted when I read the name "Grace Boyd." I knew that the oldest daughter of David and Minnie Boyd was buried there, because Aunt Blanche had told me. However, her grave hadn't been marked for years, if ever. Somehow, the association had discovered Grace's grave's location and had marked it with a pretty pink marker. Her date of death, age, and father's name were also there. Where had they found her date of death? No death record exists for her at the Flathead County Courthouse.

Today, I received the answer to that question. The man who started the association for the cemetery provided the information and more. In the Flathead County Library, he found several pieces of information: an old cemetery listing showing that David Boyd had bought Bethel Cemetery Plot #45; David's daughter Grace had died at that same time in 1907, as reported in a local history publication; and David was listed in the Polk Directory in the early 1900's as a fireman working for the Somers Mill. The cemetery association deduced that this was Grace's burial site. This was how Grace's grave came to be marked and how her death date was discovered.

The association plans to put permanent brass-plated markers on the graves. Of course, families can place their own monuments, if they wish. The association is also collecting info on the people buried in the cemetery and on the community of Somers. How exciting!