Jim Boys was indefatigable in pursuit of information. Wherever possible, he followed every man through to his death, and in a number of cases traced relatives to the present day. Many lives are only chronicled in the accounts he created. For more than forty years he gathered information from a huge range of sources, including official records (War Office, India Office, Public Record Office), contemporary newspapers, census returns, church records, Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and many local and national libraries.
He corresponded with descendants and wider-family members, modern-day regiments, and other organisations and individuals throughout the world, seeking and exchanging information, photographs & transcripts of letters and other published and unpublished documents.
In the course of his studies, Jim Boys accumulated a substantial collection of contemporary material – photographs, paintings and other images, letters and autobiographies (including accounts of the Charge never previously published). To these he added modern photographs of medals, memorials and gravestones, most of which he took himself on his extensive travels – in many cases, only just ahead of the bulldozer.
The end result of his "labour of love" is probably the most complete and authoritative record of the lives of men of the Light Brigade, and their families, in existence. The task now is to find appropriate ways of making this extraordinarily valuable resource more widely available.