The parents of Henry Choyce are not known. His granddaughter, Edna (Choyce) Kent says he was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. According to his age on his death record, he would have been born in 1849.

The Index of Births at St. Catherine's House, London, lists a birth for a Henry Choyce at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, for the June Quarter of 1849. Henry is known to have had two sisters but they have not yet been identified.

Henry Choyce married Jane Hull, probably in 1876. St. Catherine's House has a marriage for a Henry Choyce within the Shardlow, Derbyshire, Registration District, in the December Index for that year. Shardlow is about 12 miles north of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The names of the brides were not entered in the indexes until 1912. Edna (Choyce) Kent says that Jane "was from Cudworth, near Barnsley, in South Yorkshire".

Jane (Hull) and Henry Choyce had seven children: John Ernest, who was always called Ernest, born 1877; Thomas Edwin, known as "Henry", 1879; Harry Samuel, 1881; Aked Claire, 1884; Edith Gertrude, 1886; Anne Evelyne, 1889; and Harold Huskison Choyce, born 1891. The first four children were born within the Barnsley Registration District. Edith Gertrude is known to have been born at Cudworth, within the Barnsley district. The two youngest children were born at Sheffield, South Yorkshire.