Bovell, Bovil, Boval etc

The name Bovill (and variants) isn’t very common in Co Antrim. There were only 79 in the 1901 census. The majority lived around the parish of Ballyscullion Grange. Notably in Culnafay and  Ardnaglass. So not too far from Portglenone. The majority were Church of Ireland (ie Episcopalian) but there were Brethren, RC and Baptists too. Some Presbyterians (Church of Scotland) but mostly in Belfast. 1 Moravian. So an interesting mix. 

Most from the Ballyscullion area would be buried in either Ballyscullion Church of Ireland graveyard or Templemoyle which is beside it. You can view transcripts of the legible gravestones on the Braid site:

http://thebraid.com/genealogy.aspx

It tended to be farmers who had gravestones. If your family were labourers then they wouldn’t have had one, in most cases.

Ballyscullion Church of Ireland lost all its early records in the 1922 fire in Dublin so has nothing before the 1870s; Brethren in Ireland don’t baptise and so have no baptism records. Their marriages, 1845 onwards, are conducted in a Register Office, so any Brethren Bovill marriages should be in the statutory marriage records on the irishgenealogy site.  (I don't see one for Elizabeth Bovill & James Donaghey). Baptists don’t practice child baptism, and the RC records start in 1834. They are on-line on the nli site.

If James Donaghey & Elizabeth had children born in Scotland in 1855 or 1861 onwards, the date and place where they married should be on each child’s birth certificate.

But the underlying message here is that if you are looking for a birth records for Rachel (mother of  James, Rachel & Clara) the chances are none exists. If Rachel senior died in Scotland 1855 onward you should get her husband’s and her parents names from her death certificate.

The occupations farmer and weaver point to the family coming from rural Antrim rather than Belfast (most of which is in Antrim). If you remove the Belfast based Bovills from the 1901 census, the majority of what’s left lived in Ballyscullion, plus a few others here and there. There was a James Bovill farming in Dunnygarran near Ballymena but he was still alive in 1862 so not your family. My hunch would ne that your family came from around Ballyscullion.

There’s a general shortage of records for the period you need. The 1831 & 1841 censuses were destroyed in the 1922 fire (along with Ballyscullion's church records). There are no tithe applotment records for the parish as it was originally church land (there is likely to have been a monastery there at one time, pre Reformation). So no tithes to consult. It was, and still is a farming area along the east bank of the Bann.  According to the Ordnance Survey memoirs of 1836 Ballyscullion grew mostly wheat, oats, flax and barley. There was plenty of turbary (peat). Some linen  weaving: “In the grange, in common with the surrounding district, weaving of linen was a constant source of profitable employment to every member of a farmer’s family, when their labour was not require don the farm. The employment is still continued, but the profit is now very trifling.” (As the 19th century progressed, home weaving became more uneconomic and was replaced by water powered linen factories in Belfast & Ballymena which made it much more efficiently and often to a higher standard.  One of the many factors which induced people to migrate during that period).

The OS memoir has a list of people who left Ballyscullion in 1835 & 1836. It includes Thomas Bovel 28, Millquarter, Established Church (ie Church of Ireland) to Glasgow;  William Bovel 35, also of Millquarter, Established church, to Glasgow; William Bovel, 30 Millquarter, Established church to Glasgow; Thomas Bovil, 25 Ardnaglass, Established Church to Glasgow; John Bovil, 28, Ardnaglass, Established church, to Glasgow; Elisa Bovil 20, John Bovil junior 3 died, Rachael Bovil junior 1, all of Millquarter, Established church to Glasgow.

Accurate spelling wasn’t something that folk in Ireland bothered with in the mid 1800s. Most folk were illiterate but even when they weren’t they just didn’t bother. So you need to use your common sense about the variations.  Bovill can be spelled many ways. If you get fixed on a particular spelling, you are probably not going to find your ancestors.

I’d guess that Bovill is a Huguenot name (so probably arrived in Ireland in from France the late 1690s after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) but that would be hard to confirm.