Recorded in a number of forms including Swendell, Swindall, Swindell, Swindle, Swyndell, the dialectic Swindells and possibly others, this is a surname of Northern English origins. It is fairly widespread in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshiore, and is locational. It is believed to originate from Swindale, a hamlet near Shap in the county of Westmorland, so called from the Old English pre 7 century words "swin", meaning a wild boar, plus "dael", a valley, hence, the valley where the wild boars roamed. However it is also possible that the surname may have originated from a now "lost" medieval estate in the parish of Cheadle, in the county of Cheshire. The Wills Register of Cheshire for the year 1611 contains the following statement. "A branch of the family of Howford held a small estate here in the 14th Century called Swndelves". Early examples of the surname recording include Henry Swyndell who married Janet Winterbotham on November 13th 1575, at Rotherham in Yorkshire, while at Almondbury, in Yorkshire, Joannes Swendell, the son of Petri Swendell was christened on April 1st 1578, and James Swindells married Faith Ormondroyd at Bradford in Yorkshire on January 3rd 1820. The first recorded spelling of the family name may that of Roger Swyndels, of Marple, in Cheshire. This was dated 1522, in the Wills Records at the city of Chester, during the reign of King Henry V111 of England, 1509 - 1547. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop," often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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