This interesting and unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is locational from any of the several places so called, for example, Poulton in Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Kent and Lancashire. Recorded as "Poltune" in the Domesday Book of 1086 for the various counties, the name, in all cases, derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "pol", translating variously as a "pool, stream" or "deep place in a river", and "tun", a farm or settlement; hence, "settlement by a pool". Locational surnames, such as this, were usually acquired by a local landowner, or by the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, usually in search of work, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname was first recorded in the early half of the 14th Century (see below). Recordings from Kent Church Registers include: the marriage of Ellen Pulton and Thomas Jenckins on January 26th 1578, in Strood near Rochester; the marriage of Margaret Poulton and John Steele on February 1st 1636, at Sandback; and the christening of Judith, daughter of John Poulton, at St. Mary the Virgin, Dover, on March 11th 1693. The family Coat of Arms is on a silver shield a black fess between three black mullets. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Pulton, which was dated 1327, in the "Exchequer Lay Subsidy Rolls of Somerset", during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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