Lowery Migration Path

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     The Vast majority of Lowery's (Lowry, Lowrey) in the United States are of Scottish descent. These settlers came either directly from Scotland or from Ulster (Northern Ireland). The Scottish people from Ulster are often referred to as "Scot-Irish". Most of the earliest settlers did NOT come from Scotland. They came from Ulster.
     When this country was first successfully settled in Virginia by the British, the settlers were of British nationality.  This included citizens from one of Britons major colonies, Scotland. The first non-English nationalities to migrate to this country in quantify were the Germans.  Their migration began in the early 1700's.  The next non-English nationality to migrate to this country was the Scot-Irish from Northern Ireland. They came in masses in the 1730's.  These three groups, the English, the Germans, and the Scot-Irish (Scottish) were the people that carried this nation into the 1800's.  They were involved in the French-and Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, etc. They are the ones that wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and put this country on its path to be the "Greatest Nation in the World".
     In the early 1600's, King James 1 of England, Scotland, and Ireland, confiscated much of Ulster from the Irish.  He resettled Ulster with English and especially LowLander Scots, most of whom were Presbyterians.  The Scots who were brought in, and their descendants, are generally called Scotch-Irish, but obviously they were really Scots in Ireland - a quite different thing. These Scots are the ones that later migrated in large number to the "New World" in the 1730's. According to most estimates, there were about a quarter of a million Ulster Scots in the colonies before the Revolutionary War.
     In general non-Ulster Scots came later than those who had sojourned on Ulster soil. Many of the HighLander Scots settled in North Carolina.  In 1769 some four thousand of the tenants of two major land holding families, the MacDonalds and the MacLeods, left Scotland almost in a body, settling mainly in the Cape Fear valley of North Carolina, where some other Highlanders already were.


     Migration in the 13 English Colonies and the United States
     Although many of the Scot-Irish settled in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, it appears that the ones that migrated from Virginia to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Westward are ones of interest in this research effort.  Many of the early settlers proceeded elsewhere as they had been brought up to husbandry or raising of grain, called bread corn.  New England did not answer as well as the collonies southward, therefore many migrated to areas such as Pennsylvania and Virginia. A secondary path must also be considered.  Many of the early settlers also migrated through the Cumberland Gap into Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Westward  and Southward.  At this point in the research, we are at 1780 in South Carolina where David Lowry was born. We are in the process of tracing our Ancestors path back to their port of entry in this country and back to Scotland.
     When you study when the new land that became available to the settlers, you can see why the various migration paths occured.  In the early days, this country consisted of very large areas of land and few settlers.  Another major problem that was encountered was the problem with the Native Americans as their land was abused and was taken from them as the settlers swarmed in.
     The Germans, Scot-Irish, and English mixed and traveled quite well.  By the time you get to the 1900's, you will find all three nationalities in a great majority of the families.
     Although there has been a trickle of many other nationalities from the beginning, it was in the mid 1800's that you saw larger influxes of other groups that added the "All American" touch to our society.  In our present society, we have nationalities from every place in the world.

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