From Ballyboyle to Corglass... a Boyle family's story
Part 2 - Corglass
Why are there no Boyle Cousins in Ireland?
In Ireland, Boyle is not an uncommon name, so it is not an unusual occurrence to meet others of the name. Being Ireland, the question is always there in the background "maybe we are related?"
But for us Boyles, the answer is always "No, or at least not closely". And in my own case, when my father ever talked about his cousins, it was always Higginses, Bradys, Kennys and so on, but never Boyles. Why is it that we are not related to any of the Boyles we might bump into? Have a look at this:
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To have Boyle cousins, we would need to have uncles or grand-uncles named Boyle, and for this to happen, there would need to be several brothers in each generation with sons.
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But for five generations, there has only been one male in each generation who remained in Ireland and who had a son who remained in Ireland. (No slight intended to the great women of the family, but traditionally the name follows the sons.)
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Hence in Ireland, the name has been hanging on by a single thread down to the present day, and even though the family expanded a little with the sons of James5, there are now just three grandsons of James5 to keep the name going there.
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What this means is that if one of these were to meet another Boyle in Ireland, the closest common ancestor they could have would be the father of Terence1, a common great-great-great-great-great grandparent, which would make them sixth cousins. Given that Terence1's father would be only one of 128 potential ancestors of that generation, it's quite possible that they would be more closely related through an entirely different non-Boyle ancestral line!
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There are now hundreds of descendants of Terence1, but few of them carry the Boyle name. Of course there are the descendants of Terence4 and Peter4 in the USA, and of Patrick5 and Terence5 in England, but only about a dozen of these are male Boyles.
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