The Lowe Family Origins

The Low or Lowe surname is German and/or English in origin.  It means “…(O)ne with lion-like characteristics, bold; dweller at the sign of the lion; dweller at the mound, or burial mound, or heap of stones; dweller at the sign of  the wolf; descendant of Low, a pet form of Lawrence (laurel, a symbol of victory).

The Low name dates back many centuries and can, in some instances, be traced to it’s ancestral homeland of Scotland.  Low was a family name used by the MacLaren Clan from the late hundreds AD in southern Scotland.  The Lows are listed in the Rolls of Clans of 1587 and 1594.  The MacLarens were known as a warlike clan who feuded among themselves, as well as with other clans. ²  Another possibility is that our Low ancestor was of German origin, which may be most likely as the first Low of  our line. He was Aquilla Low, who lived for a time in Pennsylvania and may have been the son of a German immigrant.  

However, I received an email from Mike in South Carolina and in it he made several valid points:

"I would not make any assumption at all concerning Aquila Low's ethnicity. At the time of his residence in Pennsylvania, it is much more likely that he would be Scottish or Ulster Scot (Scotch Irish) than German. The Germans did not start immigration until much later.

Additionally, William Penn actually solicited and encouraged Scots familys to immigrate to PA, to form a buffer between the Quaker colony and the native Americans and the French. Later, they turned out to be a little bit unruly, and the Penns did their best to encourage them to leave PA.

They did leave in large numbers, passing down the Shennandoah Valley into SW Virginia, western NC, and what was to become east Tennessee. The Lows seem to have followed this pattern quite closely.

None of this is conclusive, but it leads me to believe that this line of Lows, like almost all others in the southeast, is in fact Scots."  (Thanks for that Mike.  Very informative and appreciated).

I do not yet know who or when our Low ancestor emigrated to the United States, but I am sure it was before the American Revolution, because the first Low we know to be our ancestor was Aquilla Low.  He had settled in what would become Tennessee before the 1780’s, and his fifth child was born there in 1781. ³  Kentucky and Tennessee were first settled in the late 1770’s.  Migration patterns show that Tennessee was settled mainly by people from South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina.  I have found a reference to an Isaac Low Sr., who was born in Virginia between 1720 and 1726, and a son named Isaac, who was born in 1746.  The name Isaac is a Low family name that has been passed on throughout several generations, so Aquilla could logically be a son or grandson of one of these two earlier Isaac Lows, but this is purely supposition, and yet to be proven.