Revised on 17 August 2026.
The Galtons are a Dorset family with connections to some well known Victorian families and an interesting history.
The name is said to have been first recorded as John de Galton from around 1275 and originating from a small village to the west of Wool. By the 1600's the name appears in a number of villages in Dorset.
The Galton of most note is Sir Francis Galton FRS and there are pages on him and his family at many places. He was a half-cousin of Charles Darwin with a common grandparent of Erasmus Darwin. His Wikipedia entry is HERE and opens in a new window. There is also a standalone page on Francis Galton's ancestry HERE which also opens in a new window. This page has an enormous collection of the works of Francis Galton and is not directly relevant to our search for the origins of Galton!
Another source about the origins of the Galton family is from a web site, Ballumbie Castle on the northern outskirts of Dundee. The owner, Mark Lindley-Highfield has an Ancestry tree ( but is not a DNA match to the family, not surprising!) and a number of details of his descent from the Rev. John Galton of Coombe Keynes & Wool around 1600. He says 'Mark Lindley‑Highfield of Ballumbie Castle descends from the Galton family of Dorset. His ninth great‑grandfather, Rev. John Galton, MA (Oxon), served as Chaplain of New College, Oxford, and later as vicar of Wool and East Lulworth, as well as Chaplain to the Dowager Countess Howard of Bindon. His wife, Rachel Burleigh, was the daughter of Thomas Burleigh, Gentleman of Bere Regis, and Elizabeth Trenchard, daughter of Henry Trenchard, Esquire, and his wife Margaret Drury. The Burleigh and Trenchard families, including Mark’s tenth great‑grandparents, appear in the Visitations of Dorset, and his nine‑times great‑grandfather Rev. John Galton appears in the entry for the Galton family of Hadzor House in Burke’s Landed Gentry (1937).' More detail of the several connections is from another site quoted by Mark Lindley-Highfield HERE. This a bit of a ramble and not compulsory reading but is does add to the picture of the origins of Galton.