Bowen/Boren/Boreing/Boring/Bowring

 Today I received several documents I have not seen previously which give  a great deal of detail on the Bowen/Boren/Boreing/Boring/Bowring line. All of these surnames are actually the same family. They are apparently NOT related to families that came here as Bowens from the UK. 

Ronnie Bowen, my cousin, did many years of research on the Bowen family. He reached the conclusion that our Bowens were actually Boren at one time. I believe he was correct. These recent documents give what seems to me to be the missing link between our Bowens and the Boreings who apparently arrived via Baltimore, Maryland.

I will be sharing more details here. But for now, here is a very brief outline:

Boreings arrive from England at Baltimore, Md. about 1656. They became owners of large tracts of land just north of present day Baltimore.

One of the Boreings later served in the War of 1812. After the war he received a grant of land in Washington County, NC which is in present day Tennessee. Rather than move there, he sold it to a son, who did relocate there with a wife and other family. This is apparently the point where our family arrived in TN. Today there is a small community there named Boring, TN.

One of the Boreings wrote some family history in the 1800's and mentioned that he and one brother had dropped the 'e' from their name and now wrote it as Boring.

One of the Borings in his will left portions of his large land holdings to his sons, except to one son he left only one shilling. Apparently the father and son had had some sort of falling out with one another. It was the son who was not left any land that bought the land grant in Tennessee. Once in TN this son shows up with his name being Boren and his son is recorded as Bowen. Perhaps this was a clerical error. Boren might sound like Bowen and Bowen was a prominent name in TN at the time, there being a Governor Bowen with very prominent war heros in his family (not related to our family).

I am very excited about these new documents to study and will share more details soon.