Recorded in several forms including Sandal, Sandall, Sandle, Sandell and probably others, this is an English surname. It is locational from places called Kirk Sandall, the brother village of Long Sandall, and Sandal Magna, all in Yorkshire. The former village is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Sandala' with a subsequent recording in the early Yorkshire Charters of 1148 as 'Sandhala', while the latter, although identical in the Domesday Book, has a later recording as 'Le Sandehale' in the Inquisitions Miscellaneous of 1318. The derivations of these places are the same, being from the Olde English pre 7th century word 'sand', meaning a sandbank or sandy soil, with the Olde English 'halh', meaning corner land or land formed by a bend in the river. During the Middle Ages it became more common for people to migrate from their birth place to seek work. In so doing they would often adopt as their surname, the name of their former village as a means of identification. This in turn often lead to a wide dispersal of the name. In this case we have the interesting recording of Johannes Sandall in the Poll Tax Rolls for Yorkshire in 1379. However the first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Peter de Sandal. This was dated 1188, in the Chartulary of Whalley Abbey, Lancashire, during the reign of King Henry 11nd of England, 1154 - 1189. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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