Mary Boyd

Brewster-Boyd OAP Record 01 Brewster&BoydGraves

Mary was born in 1810.

• Birth Notes

  Aged 75 in 1885 death certificate.

She died at the age of 75 on July 8th, 1885 in Dromore.

• Death Notes

  Date of Death found in Deaths Index in Derry Family History Centre.  Death certificate from General Registry Office, Belfast shows she was 75 years when she died  in Dromore, Macosquin on 8th July 1885, and that her daughter, Sarah Brewster, also of Dromore, was Present at Death.  Mary died from "old age and debility years - not certified no medical attendant".  She is given as the wife of a labourer.  The death was registered on 31st July 1885. 

• General Notes

  This is the woman who gave me my unusual Christian name, the source of which began my interest in family history.  Barbara Braswell found her.  22/06/2005 - Email from Barbara Braswell, using Old Age Pension Census Enquiries, filmed by LDS (#0258545) and available at her FHC in Big Springs, Texas: "1851 Census searched Claimant - John Brewster* Father - Robert Brewster Mother - Mary BOYD Townland - Dromore Parish - Macosquin Age 69 9/12ths * Please state age of Sarah Brewster from same details. R. J. McCandless."  This is incontrovertible evidence that Mary Boyd was my great great grandmother, she was married to Robert Brewster, and she was the source of the Boyd name!!!  In the fold it was possible to read, "Family found.  Married 1836.  John.... 8 years old".  The record was dated 12th February 1917.
  
  It has proved very difficult to find out to which family of Boyds she belonged.  There seems to be least three Boyd families in the northern Aghadowey townlands of Collins, Killeague, Cullycapple, Crosscandly and Ballylintagh, plus many more in the rest of Aghadowey and in Macosquin, most no doubt linked in some way.  Dromore, where she lived with her husband, Robert Brewster, is in the parish of Macosquin but it adjoins the parish of Aghadowey and this now seems the most likely source of her lineage. 
  
  She might be connected to Kennedy Boyd, of the Collins Boyds, for the very flimsy reason that her great grandson, my father, Samuel Gray, had the obituary of Kennedy Boyd's great grandson, Ringland Boyd, pasted into his scrapbook.  Ringland died in 1950 and I was born in 1951.  I know that my parents chose to put Boyd in my name because Mary Alice Boyd Gray McShane visited the Route Hospital in Ballymoney, where I was born, and asked them to, but if she ever gave any reason or explained the link, my mother did not know what it was.
  
  The only other evidence is circumstancial.  The Brewsters lived within a couple of miles of Kennedy Boyd's family.  In fact, the Brewsters were Seceders but Kennedy Boyd's family were regular Presbyterians whereas other Boyds living nearby in Crosscandly were Seceders.  There is a Seceder Church in Killaigh, where Kennedy Boyd lived.  The OS Memoirs describe it as the New Light Anti-Burgher Seceder Church of Killeague, led by the Reverend James Bryce.  Its records go back just far enough to cover Mary's marriage in 1836:
  Killaig Presbyterian Church, 20,
  A1;  Baptisms 1860 - 1944                          
  A2;  Copy of Baptisms, 1805 - 56, and marriages, 1836
  - 43, with indexes, and communicants' list, c.1818 -
  c.1839                                             
  B1/2:  Marriages 1865 - 1903
  However, though there are some Kennedy Boyd BMDs, there are none for a Mary Boyd who might be my great great grandmother.
  
  My Mary Boyd might also be linked to the Boyds in Drumcroon for the simple reason that the 1831 Census shows a William Boyd(head of a household of 1 male and 4 females) and a John Brewster living as neighbours in Dumcroon.  Unfortunately, there is as yet no connection between Mary and Drumcroon and nor is there any connection between the Drumcroon Boyds and any of the other Boyds.  There are some interesting facts however.  First, a William Boyd of Crosscanley married a Nancy Blair from Drumcroon in 1893 and went to live there.  Second, Linda Gilmore has said that her "family notes" show that a Thomas Boyd (1787-1859), son of John Boyd of Lismoyle and The Collins, married a Jane McNeil from Drumcroon (and the GV does show a McNeal family in Drumcroon) and had two daughters.  Was one of these my Mary Boyd?
  
  Further evidence has come to light as regards the links with Drumcroon. There is a remarkable similarity between William Boyd's family and my Mary Boyd and Robert Brewster - the recurrence of William, Sarah and Ann - and even Matilda.  And then there is the readiness to call children Boyd, or put it in as a middle name.  So, is William of Drumcroon, 1807-1864, the son of William of Collins who married Nancy Gage?  William and Nancy do not as yet have a son called William and naming convention suggests that Wiliiam of Drumcroon's parents were William and Ann.  And William of Drumcroon has the same names in his family as my Robert Brewster and Mary Boyd, and Robert Brewster may well have come from Drumcroon, so is she another sister of William.  Again, William Boyd and Nancy Gage have as yet no daughter called Mary.  And best of all, William and Nancy Gage had a son called Kennedy Boyd who is the great grandfather of Ringland Boyd.  The man in my parents' scrapbook.  I have moved all the Boyds around so that Mary and William and Kennedy are side by side.
  
  Mary might also be the "Margaret", whom Linda Gilmour once told me by email was the daughter of Thomas Boyd, and therefore granddaughter of John of Lismoyle and the Collins, who married "a Mr Brewster and lived in Dromore".  The only problem is that, as well as being called Margaret rather than Mary, this woman's mother was born in 1796 and my Mary was born in 1810, so they could not really be mother and daughter unless the dates are incorrect.  Oral tradition confusing generations and the name Margaret and Mary might explain this.  This Thomas Boyd has now been established as the Thomas Boyd of Killykergan, whose sons, Thomas and John, went to Boston, and who erected a gravestone to him in Aghadowey Church of Ireland church.  One other interesting link is that there seems to be another broken and overturned gravestone, this time in Ballylintagh, only feet from my Mary Boyd's presumed grave (which only says "The Brewsters of Dromore").  This stone also seems to have the word Boston on it.  One problem with Killykergan is that it is quite a long way from Dromore, being south of Aghadowey village.  One new piece of evidence supporting this theory is that David Brewster has given me a family tree which he took down from his father which shows that my Mary Boyd Brewster also had a son called Thomas that I did not know about.  This Thomas might be named for her father, Thomas Boyd of Killykergan.
  
  Another possibility is that my Mary Boyd could be one of the Marys born to two other sons of John of Lismoyle and Collins, John Boyd and Hugh Boyd as per the "Boyd Family Notes" which are held by Linda Gilmour of Aghadowey.  This seems particularily likely because she is buried about four yards from a Hugh Boyd in Ballylintagh Seceder Church, who I believe is  the son of John Boyd of Lismoyle and Collins.  I believe this Hugh lived in Ballybrittain after moving to Aghadowey, which is just two townlands (Crosscanley and Ballylintagh) away from Dromore.
  
  Being a daughter of any of John, Hugh and Thomas, but especially William, would also reestablish the link between Mary Boyd and Kennedy Boyd - they would be either siblings or first cousins - and therefore reestablish the link between my father and Ringland Boyd, making them fourth cousins.  Would Mary Alice Boyd Gray McShane have known that her grandmother was a sisterof maybe a first cousin of Kennedy Boyd and that all the Boyd teachers in Crosscanley and Collins were therefore "cousins" of hers?  (She was a contemporary and third cousin of Alfred Edgar Boyd, the father of Ringland Boyd who died the year before I was born.)
  
  310109: Andrew Brewster and Robert Boyd are side by side in the PHL - I would love to know where!!!!  Sandwiched between Kid Thompson Smith Smith!  Which townland is that??  And that IS Glenhall - see attached 1831 Census - Kidd is such an unusual name!  Soooo, there were Boyds in Glenhall in the 1740 PHL - which is of course the main Brewster stronghold.  No surprise there.  And no way of linking that into the Boyds we know from our study.
  
  

Details of Mary's family with Robert  [Dromore] Brewster