I could echo the opening sentence on Roger Beckwith's superb Finchingfield site: "I've been visiting Finchingfield in Essex all my life, although I've never lived there ..."  

My own mother's Broyd family appear in Finchingfield and other nearby parish registers since these began. Because they were simple working people they would have not moved around much, and therefore had probably lived in the area for centuries before that.

My mother's father (Willie/William), grandfather (Peter) and great-grandfather (John, originally from the Sampfords) lived in Finchingfield and some at least of the women in the family were straw-plaiters. (Discovering this fact led me into the history of an activity I had scarcely heard of, which became, thanks to the writings of Susan Pearl, a fascinating study of its own.)

I am preparing this website as a base for Broyds and Broyd-researchers, partly to see if it's of any use to anyone, and partly to a lesser extent to see if my distant relatives, whom I might in childhood have met, see it and are interested in getting in touch with me. I live on the other side of England, but I return frequently to Essex.

I've always regarded Broyd as an uncommon surname, and on that basis assume that we are all in some way related.

My background has been in archives and historical research for forty years; although the genealogical aspect doesn't in itself interest me, I am interested in the fact that we might all point back to the same East Anglian stock two or three centuries ago. I'm also interested in variant spellings (e.g. Broiad).

I am collecting data on all Broyds of the last 200 years, and earlier. I am working towards entering the surname into the Guild of One-Name Studies.

So far I have concentrated on Finchingfield, but I know that there were many Broyds nearby, in other parishes. The name occurs in the records of many of the adjoining parishes in the Braintree and Halstead areas, and elsewhere, and it's clear that one or more strands went off to London and built up families there.

Like most people's, my time is very limited, and for the present I plan to leave this site as it is now, and wait and see who finds it and if anyone else is interested in this family. (Roger Beckwith's Finchingfield site has a model genealogy section, where there are Broyd mentions.) For two years I have been looking after elderly Broyds, but those duties are gradually decreasing and I am more optimistic about the future.

I look forward to hearing from you: the email address is now restored.

Isabel

THIS SITE IS TO BE RELAUNCHED BY 21 AUGUST 2006: THOSE ALREADY ON MY MAILING LIST WILL BE NOTIFIED. PLEASE ASK IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO THAT.

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