Born in 1818 at Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia, to Martha Jefferson Randolph, the daughter of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, and her husband (and future Virginia governor) Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., the couple's youngest son could trace his descent to Pocahontas and had many relations among the First Families of Virginia. His name honored George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, law professor of his grandfather Thomas Jefferson, and Virginia judge who opposed slavery (which position likely caused his murder). Randolph's relations also included Edmund Randolph (Virginia's second governor after statehood as well as the first Attorney General of the United States), colonist William Randolph, Isham Randolph of Dungeness, Richard Randolph and Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe.