Delmar R. Lowell

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American historian and genealogist, Delmar Richard Lowell was born in the middle of the 19th century and was a member of Boston's well-known Lowell family. A close cousin and Harvard College classmate of brothers A. Lawrence and Percival Lowell, Delmar focused his concentration on researching and documenting the Lowell family history.

After spending several years abroad traveling England in pursuit of the history of his family surname he returned to the U.S. to research the descendants of the founding patriarch in America, Percival Lowle. Delmar's effort culminated in a 2 volume publication called Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899 (The Tuttle Company, 1899) which can be found in the Library of Congress, Harvard's Pusey Library, and several book dealers specializing in early 20th century and other rare or out of print books.

Lowell's work, coupled with Ferris Greenslet's biography, The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds (Houghton Mifflin, 1946), are considered two of the primary resources for most modern researchers looking into the Lowell family history.

While Delmar was a member of the John Lowell line, which produced the aristocratic Boston Lowells, his work thoroughly covers the Richard Lowell line, which produced the Maine Lowells, as well. Over a period of 20 years Lowell documented the births, birthplaces, marriages, re-marriages, children, and the deaths of Lowells all over the United States from 1639 to 1899. His 2 volume book covers over 800 pages and literally thousands of his kinsmen living and dead. The contents of several early wills, including John, Richard, and Percival's, are included in his publication. And he includes the first published description given for the Lowell family Coat of Arms.

Much of Delmar's research into Percival Lowle's ancestry can be found today copied in the online genealogies of hundreds of families who have traced their own American heritage to founding the Lowell's.