Born in San Francisco, California, Daulton is of English-Scottish and Spanish descent. On his father's side, Daulton's family had settled in British America by the 17th century; and he is a direct descendant of American Revolutionary War soldier Moses Daulton (1760–1819), who enlisted at age 15 (3rd Virginia Regiment, Continental Army) and fought at the Battle of Trenton (1776), among other engagements.^[13][14] On his mother's side, Daulton's grandparents, Antonio Espinosa Perez and Josefa Aragon Rodriguez, were Andalusian, from small villages in the Province of Granada, Spain; in 1907, as part of the Spanish immigration to Hawaii, their families relocated to Hawai'i (the Big Island), where they paid off their passage by laboring for three years in the sugarcane plantations before moving to California.^[15]

Daulton attended Wheeling High School in Wheeling, Illinois, where he was a valedictorian of his graduating class in 1974.^[16] He received his B.S., with honors, from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978 and his J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1981. Later, in the early 1990s, Daulton attended graduate school at Northern Illinois University where he studied the history of Southeast Asian art under the supervision of Professor Richard Cooler, then Director of the U. S. Center for Burma studies, and, having been awarded a FLAS fellowship,^[17] studied the Burmese language under the supervision of Professor Saya U Saw Tun. Daulton's classmates in art history at NIU included Alexandra Green, now curator for Southeast Asia at the British Museum, London,^[18] and Jennifer Tonkovich, now curator of drawings and prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.^[19] During his time at NIU, Daulton undertook fieldwork in Myanmar and India, researching, documenting, and publishing, in the Journal of Burma Studies, the story of the Relics of Sariputta and Moggallana, the Buddha's two chief disciples, at the Kaba Aye Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar.^[20]

In 1995, as a cultural property lawyer, Daulton recovered a 1000-year-old Buddha statue that had been stolen from a temple in Bagan, Myanmar.

In 1988, in Myanmar (Burma), during a period of civil unrest associated with the burgeoning democracy movement, a period when some remote archaeological sites were left unattended, thieves opportunistically broke into the 11th-century Kyauk-ku-umin Temple in Bagan, Myanmar's ancient capital city, and stole several 1000-year-old sandstone statues of the Buddha. There was no knowledge of the whereabouts of the stolen statues until 1991, when one of the statues, a 22-inch standing figure of the Buddha in dharmachakra mudra (the Buddha preaching his First Sermon), appeared in a Sotheby's catalogue, slated for sale at auction in New York City on October 28, 1991.^[21] Art dealer Richard K. Diran of San Francisco, who claimed to have purchased the statue in Bangkok, had consigned the statue to Sotheby's for auction. An astute anonymous observer recognized the statue as one of the stolen Buddha images (a photograph showing the statue in situ in its temple niche had been published years earlier in an academic text and the statue had a preexisting and identifying break just above the knees).^[22] Upon this discovery, Sotheby's was informed, withdrew the statue from the sale, and, in turn, contacted the FBI. The FBI impounded the statue and conducted an investigation. After considering the possibility of a criminal prosecution for trafficking in stolen property, the United States Department of Justice, on August 15, 1994, instead initiated a civil proceeding, known as an interpleader proceeding, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, for the purpose of determining who was the rightful owner of the Buddha statue, the country of Myanmar or art dealer Richard K. Diran. That legal proceeding, United States v. Richard K. Diran and The Union of Myanmar, 94 CIV. 5898, was assigned to U.S. District Judge John E. Sprizzo. Jack Daulton represented Myanmar (through Myanmar's Permanent Representative to the United Nations) in the litigation, on a pro bono basis. Dr. Richard Cooler, Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University, and Director of the Center for Burma studies, provided expert assistance in connection with the case.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

The case presented some interesting legal questions of, among other issues, state immunity (foreign sovereign immunity) and Choice of law (Myanmar, Thailand, or USA). As a threshold matter, in order to participate in the proceeding (through joinder as a nominal defendant), Myanmar, relying upon Daulton's legal opinion, had to agree to a limited waiver of its immunity, and submission to the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court, for sole purposes of the interpleader proceeding. This case was the first time, and perhaps the only time, that Myanmar has waived its immunity to suit in a U.S. court. Notably, this case also was the first time that a Southeast Asian nation litigated a cultural property claim in the U.S. After a period of acrimonious litigation, Diran agreed unconditionally to relinquish his claim to the Buddha statue. And, in 1995, Judge Sprizzo entered a consent decree, drafted by Daulton, adjudicating that Myanmar held full and exclusive ownership of the Buddha statue.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

Following the successful conclusion of the litigation, and pursuant to Daulton's pro bono agreement with Myanmar, the Buddha statue was placed on exhibition for one year at the Northern Illinois University Art Museum.^[27] Eventually, the statue made its way back to Myanmar where it is now the centerpiece of the new Buddhist art gallery at the National Museum of Myanmar (Yangon).^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34]}

The Daulton Collection is an eclectic collection of art and artifacts from all over the world.^[35] The current acquisitional focus of the collection is German symbolist art;^[36] and the collection has been called the world's "most important collection of symbolist art from Germany and Austria."^[37][3] The Daulton Collection contains many notable works, including "Hexenwald" ("Witch of the Woods") by Julie Wolfthorn, as well as the largest collection of Gabriel von Max works in the world. Pieces from the collection are frequently featured in exhibitions in Europe and the US. A 2011 exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington, entitled "Gabriel von Max: Be-tailed Cousins and Phantasms of the Soul," featured The Daulton Collection's many works by the artist.^[38][39]

With his partner, software executive Roz Ho, Daulton has funded research expeditions around the globe, particularly in the fields of archaeology and linguistics. Expeditions funded by Daulton include the following:

• July 2013, Micronesian Linguistics Expedition: expedition to document endangered languages on remote islands in Micronesia, including Mwoakilloa Atoll. This expedition was organized by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages (Dr. K. David Harrison and Dr. Gregory Anderson (linguist), expedition leaders). Daulton was also a member of the expedition team as an ethnographic interviewer and photographer.^[40][41][42]
• July–August 2016, Wiracochan Archeological expedition: expedition to excavate, survey, and map Inca and pre-Inca sites on a mountain called Wiracochan in the Vilcabamba mountain range of the Peruvian Andes (Peter Frost expedition leader).^[43][44]
• November 2017, Arunachal Pradesh Linguistics Expedition: expedition to document endangered languages in the remote northwest area of Arunachal Pradesh State, India, in particular the Sartang language of West Kameng district (Dr. Gregory Anderson (linguist), expedition leader). Daulton was also a member of the expedition team as an ethnographer and photographer.^[45]
• July 2018, Pico Cão Grande Climbing Expedition: expedition to make the first American free climb of Pico Cão Grande, a 1,200-foot volcanic spire arising from the rainforest on Sao Tome (Island) off of the equatorial coast of west Africa.^[46][47]

Daulton and his partner Roz Ho, as executive producers, also funded short documentary films arising out of the Wiracochan and Pico Cão Grande expeditions: “Vilcabamba – A Sacred Valley,” 2018, directors Kyle McBurnie and Kevin Floerke;^[48][49] “Nubivagant 360 VR,” 2019, director Jacob Kupferman (Official Selection Horsetooth International Film Festival 2019, Official Selection Edmonton Short Film Festival 2019, Official Selection and Finalist NZ Web Fest 2019, Official Selection Woodbury Film Festival 2020, Official Selection and Best VR Documentary FAFF Fine Arts Film Festival 2020, Venice Institute of Contemporary Art, Venice, CA, and Official Selection New Media Film Festival Los Angeles 2021);^{[46][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]} "Why We Climb," director Jacob Kupferman (Finalist, 2019 Roam Awards);^[57][58] and "Nubivigant," director Jacob Kupferman (Official Selection Boulder Environmental/Nature/Outdoor Film Festival 2020, Official Selection Frozen River Film Festival, Winona, MN, 2021).^[59][60]

Daulton and his partner Roz Ho have also provided financial support to paleoanthropological research and exploration undertaken by the Institute of Human Origins (Donald Johanson, founding director), Arizona State University, where Daulton is on the Research Council,^[61] and at the Turkana Basin Institute (Louise Leakey, director), Stony Brook University.^[62] In addition, Daulton has provided significant funding to the Last Mile Technology Program (photographer Chris Rainier, director), supplying indigenous groups with modern technology to document their traditional culture.^[63]

Daulton is a member of the Explorers Club.

Daulton currently resides in Los Altos Hills, California with his longtime partner, pioneering software executive Roz Ho, Chief Software Officer (Connected Vehicle), Ford Motor Company^[64] (formerly VP at HP, Microsoft, Ericsson, and TiVo), a 2018 Women in Technology International Hall of Fame inductee.^[65] He has two children: Dr. Melanie Daulton (MD, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 2019; Fellow/Clinical Scholar, Pediatric Ophthalmology, Stanford University, 2023) and Dr. Sam Daulton (PhD, Machine learning, University of Oxford, 2023; research scientist, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Core Data Science, since 2017), both elite rock climbers.^{[66][67][68][69][70][71]} Daulton's brother is Robert Daulton, an artist, community activist, and politician (planning commissioner, 2019–2022) in Fremont, California, who was a well-known figure in performance art in Chicago in the 1980s (MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984).^{[72][73][74][75][76]}