He was born at St Neot in Cornwall to William Dangar and Judith Hooper.
His obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald gives his date of birth as 13 March 1808,[1] while his parliamentary biography gives it as 1 February 1807.
[2] His two brothers, Henry Dangar and William Danger, migrated to New South Wales and he followed them, arriving on 13 March 1825.
On 31 October 1832 he married Charlotte Selina Gibbons née Hutchinson, who was widowed, with one son Tom who took the surname Dangar.
[5] Both his stepson, Tom, and his nephew, Henry Cary Dangar, would also become members of the Legislative Assembly.