Horton Name Study

Profile managers: One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message] and Edison Williams [send private message]

Overview

If you have the English surname Horton—or the common variant spellings Orton or Horten—in your family tree, I hope you will join our Study and help build a valuable resource for people researching direct or related lines.

You can view a list of all WikiTree profiles that have been added to the Horton One-Name Study at the Study's Category page.

In keeping with principles of the Guild of One-Name Studies, the Horton One-Name Study is global in scope, and it seeks to examine all instances of the surname and associated variant spellings in all timeframes.

Participation

There is no obligatory time commitment or work responsibility required. Contribute as you like, when you can. Researching and refining the documentation of your own Horton ancestry is obviously of enormous value.

To keep abreast of WikiTree communications dealing with the Study, add the G2G tag "Horton" to your list of followed tags. Not all subjects will warrant a G2G topic, so also be sure to stop back at this page often.

Category Code

To be a Study participant, all you need to do is add the Study's WikiTree Category Code to the profiles of people you manage who were born with the surname or either of its variant spellings:

[[Category:Horton Name Study]]

Just copy and paste that line immediately above the "== Biography ==" line of the relevant profiles that you manage. Simple and easy! This adds the profile automatically to the page that maintains a list of all associated profiles.

We also have subcategories to help organize individuals by the places they were born. You can see the existing place subcategories on the Study's main Category page, but we can create place subcategories as needed. If you have a Horton ancestor who needs a new subcategory, just drop me a private message with the profile ID (please be sure the birthplace is shown on the profile).

Profile Stickers

Additionally, there are two WikiTree "stickers" you can use to highlight your Horton profiles.

Sticker for Ancestral Profiles

This profile is part of the Horton Name Study.

The first is specifically for Horton (and spelled variant) lineages where you have already placed the Category statement in the profile. It shouldn't be used unless the Category designation is in place. But since the Category information now appears at the very bottom of the profile pages, you can add this sticker directly underneath the "== Biography ==" line to better highlight that the profile is part of the Study:

{{One Name Study|name=Horton}}

The result—with a unique icon designed for the Study—will look like the small box at right, above.

Sticker for Your Own Profile

... ... ... is a member of the Horton Name Study Project.

The second sticker is for use only on the profiles of living people who are participating in the Study. Like you! Again, paste it underneath the "== Biography ==" line:

{{Member|ONS|name=Horton}}

It will look something like the second box on the right, but your name will be inserted automatically in place of the dots that you see.

The Horton Surname

Etymology

The surname Horton seems to be unequivocally of English origin, and arose as a habitational place name. Locations bearing the name can, today, be found in at least 14 English counties.

The name is dithematic—combined from two different roots—derived from the Old English words horh ("mud") or possibly horn ("dirt"), plus tūn "enclosure," or "settlement." (Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press)

This can quite literally be interpreted as most any English farmstead, and it seems likely that there were at least several biological families that adopted the surname independent of one another. The Horton Surname DNA Project, active now for over 15 years, bears testimony to multiple patrilineal lines.

Records of Some of the Earliest Hortons

This list should not be considered as authoritative or complete, but it does offer some insight into early appearances of the surname:

• Thomas de Horton, Devon, 1273. Hundred Rolls.
• William de Horton, Kent, ibid.
• Adam de Horton, Cambridgeshire, ibid.
• Emma de Horton, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.
• Dionisia de Horton, 1379: ibid; a resident in Bradford.
• Roger Horton and Margery Singer, 1583-4. Marriage License (London).
• John Horton and Sarah Houghton, 1680. Married, St. Michael, Cornhill.

Some Notable Hortons

A random list of notables who bore the Horton surname:

• Africanus Horton (1835–1883), scientist, soldier, writer and political thinker from Sierra Leone
• Ann Horton (1894-1965), British physicist
• Benjamin Jason Horton (1873–1963), Puerto Rican politician
• Claude Wendell Horton, Sr. (1915–2001), American physicist
• Clinton T. Horton (1876–1953), New York politician and judge
• Christiana Horton (c. 1696 – c. 1756), English actress
• Edward Everett Horton (1886–1970), American actor
• Hamilton C. Horton, Jr. (1931–2006), American politician from North Carolina
• Henry Hollis Horton (1866–1934), Governor of Tennessee (1927–33)
• Johnny Horton (1925–1960), American country music singer
• Lester Horton (1906–1953), American dancer
• Lesley Horton, British novelist
• Max Kennedy Horton (1883–1951), British submarine commander during the First World War, and admiral during the Second
• Mildred McAffee Horton (1900–1994), American academic and first director of the U.S. Navy WAVES
• Myles Horton (1980–1990), American educator
• Richard Horton (editor), British editor of The Lancet medical journal
• Sir Robert Horton (businessman) (born 1939), British businessman
• Robert E. Horton (1875–1945), American hydrologist
• Robert Horton (actor) (1924–2016), American TV actor
• Robert John Wilmot-Horton, 3rd Baronet (1784–1841), British politician
• S. Wentworth Horton (1885–1960), New York state senator
• Samuel Dana Horton (1844–1895), American writer
• Tommy Horton (1941–2017), English professional golfer
• Big Walter Horton (1917–1981), American blues harmonica player

Latest News & Updates

5 FEB 2023 — Family Tree DNA have added a nifty—and much requested—feature to their DNA Group Projects. This is based upon the relatively new Time Tree feature. This augments the valuable Block Tree (designed by Alex Williamson) which gives us a modular grouping of ancestral and derived SNPs for individual test takers. The Time Tree extends that to provide us a chronological view, estimating the coalescence points along the yDNA genetic tree:

FTDNA Big Y Block Tree vs. Time Tree

It's important to note that the Group Project Time Trees display only those participants who have taken a Big Y test. Lower resolution results are not sufficient to arrive at reasonably accurate chronological estimates. It's also worth mentioning that, of the 380 Horton DNA Project members, only 39 have taken the Big Y test, and only 25 of those are among the currently identified subgroupings. We need more! If you're a patrilineal-line Horton, please consider taking a Big Y test and joining the project.

When you first access the project's Time Tree it will show only the earliest known SNP: the coalescence point of all test-takers to date. There are checkboxes and a slider to the left of the display window where you can elect to view all results for every Big Y test-taker in the project, or only display results for select subgroups.

Click here to view the Horton DNA Project Time Tree at FTDNA.

18 FEB 2022 — Courtesy of Aleš Trtnik and WikiTree+, we've added a nifty new feature to the Horton One-Name Study: an interactive map that provides geolocation information for birth, death, and movement paths for all profiles Categorized as part of the ONS. The map can be adjusted to filter for various options, and you can pan around the map and even zoom in to display the names of the individuals shown. The list of profiles is pulled from the Category listing, so the display is dynamic: adding the study's Category or profile sticker will automatically include a profile in the map.

Click here to view the Horton One-Name Study interactive map.