Lyle Gifford Boyd grew up in St. Joseph, Missouri before graduating with an English degree from the University of Kansas in 1931. After graduation she married William Clouser Boyd, a biochemist with the Boston University Medical School and pioneer in the use of genetics.

The Boyds traveled throughout Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Spain, and portions of the Middle East to collect blood samples to study the relationships among human populations, past and present. Lyle Boyd appeared as co-author on several articles about their research, and she was the one who suggested testing mummies in the Egyptian Museum. The couple also published science fiction stories together under the pseudonym Boyd Ellanby.

Lyle Boyd was an editor or editorial assistant for several publications throughout the 1950s-1970s, including Harvard College Observatory, Notable American Women, and the Dictionary of American Biography. She also write a history of the Harvard College Observatory and Writing a Technical Paper.

The Boyds had one daugther, Sylvia, born in 1935. They divorced in 1965, and Lyle G. Boyd died in 1982 in Watertown, Massachusetts.

[Information from "Papers of Lyle Gifford Boyd, 1921-1982," Harvard University - Schlesinger Library, finding aid on ArchiveGrid at https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/810088295.]