Many Irish emigrants heading for the US took British ships to Canada as a cheaper means of transportation, often for free. The ships unloaded mainly in Quebec City where there was a well established Irish community and many didn't get any farther for a couple of generations. More single men than single women arrived so an Irish man (more often Catholics than the Orange Irish) would marry a French Canadian woman and the children would grow up in a French community. Culturally Irish but French speaking. I would look for traces in Quebec and look for Boles and Bowles equally. If you give me more particulars, names, dates, places etc. I can see if I have anything. > > From: DollyDnov18@aol.com > Date: 2005/06/04 Sat PM 05:52:25 CDT > To: BOWLES-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: Bowles in Canada web site > > Hi Mary, > May I horn in on your conversation? I'm definitely a newbie to this genea > logy thing, and when I first got online seven years ago looking for ancestors > all I knew was that my maternal grandpa's mother's name was BOLES, and that she > said she was French? She married my great grandfather Louis Thomas GABBARD, > gave birth to four children and died when my grandpa was about 7 years of > age. I never even considered the spelling BOWLES until finding it on Ancestry. > > Diann from So Cal > > Boles/Bowles/, Bowman, Cain, Carson, Cooper, Conner/Connor, Conely/Connelly, > Dickens, Dittemore/Detterman, Gabbard, Gentry, Goheen, Grindstaff, Hedrix, > Hertzel, Hughes, Jones, Kimbrough, Lick, Marcum, McLorie, Nehs/Neas, Penland, > Pheiffer, Shipp, Sutton, Thomas, Wilkerson, Wilson, Wood, Zirkle > > > and so and and so forth (0; > > Tom LaPorte