Ian
If you know which canal they plied on and the nearest large town or city these craft had to be registered and there are in many places surviving registers. For instance I've just been through 3 of these dating from about 1880 to 1900 and there are lots more in our local archives 'The Hull History Centre' They are titled 'Hull and Goole Canal Boats' They give all sorts of info about owners, where and when built, crews, sales, scrapping, dimensions etc, but maddeningly for me they do not state the one piece of information I require, what sort of craft, sloop, keel, billyboy, etc.