First found in Lancashire where they held a family seat from very ancient times.

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Daw surname or a spelling variation of the name include : William Dawes who settled in Massachusetts about the year 1623; and another William Dawes settled in New England in the year 1623. In Newfoundland, George Dawe was in possession of property at Port de Grave which had been in his family from 1595.

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