Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

How it begins

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusual in England, but I believe that it is not unknown in the neighbourhood of Sheffield and in Lancashire. Down to the year 1600 we find the name spelt in a variety of ways—Derwent, Darwen, Darwynne, etc. It is possible, therefore, that the family migrated at some unknown date from Yorkshire, Cumberland, or Derbyshire, where Derwent occurs as the name of a river. The first ancestor of whom we know was one William Darwin, who lived, about the year 1500, at Marton, near Gainsborough.