To-Do
Further research should be conducted in the various 17th century census substitutes referenced at the Irish Times website. Data there could shift our understanding of the geographic or genetic origins. The Tracey Family website has a great list of sources that need checking for our name(s).
Note: This section pertains to our surname grouping as a whole, not to any one family lineage. There are multiple lineages of our variant surnames in Ireland.
The different spellings seen in the earliest documents (Ybuoy, Obuoey, Ybuey, O' Bowige, O' Boughaie, O' Boo, Boee, O' Bough, Buoige, O' Buoige, Bow, Buo), or ones like them, have been noted in Irish surname history sources as earlier Gaelic versions of Bowe and Bowes. We aren't certain that the earliest of these documentary references represent prior generations of families who later anglicized their name to Boe, Bowe or Bowes. We include them here because a connection cannot be ruled out either. Keeping in mind that the earliest documents may only represent a small sampling of contemporary individuals going by names like these, you can see that the anglicized versions of Boe and Bowe first turn up, and the older Gaelic spellings die out, by the mid-1600s during the time that Gaelic names were being anglicized.
Bowe
The Bowe surname predominates in County Leix/Laois/Queens in the 1659 “Census”, the 1848-1864 Griffith's Valuation, the 1911 Census, and even the 2010 online directory. Based on the geographic stability of surnames in Ireland, this reveals that Leix/Laois/Queens, or its environs, was the origin of the Bowe spelling in Ireland. They may, however, have been a branch of the Boe from Kilkenny.
See the Southern Irish Bowe/Boe Surname Origin - Laois and Kilkenny section for further discussion.
Boe
The Boe surname predominates in Kilkenny in the 1659 “Census” but in Tipperary in the 1848-1864 Griffith's Valuation. By the 1911 Census only one Boe remained, in Antrim, presumably unrelated. Most likely the Boe all eventually became Bowe.
See the Southern Irish Bowe/Boe Surname Origin - Laois and Kilkenny section for further discussion.
Bowes
The Bowes surname Distribution and Frequency differs from Bowe. In the 1848-1864 Griffith's Valuation Bowes predominates equally in counties Kilkenny and Tipperary in the south and finds another concentration in Fermanagh in the north, indicating two founding families.
See the Southern Irish Bowes Surname Origins and Northern Irish Bowes Surname and Genetic Origins sections.
Buoy (and similar)
To come.