Happy New Year, Maggie and all Reaney's Origin of English Surnames doesn't mention either of them, unfortunately.  I'd be surprised if one is derived from the other, and the pronunciations are further apart than may appear from the spelling.    Soothill is between Batley and West Ardsley.  The 'h' is silent (as is often the fate of the 'h' in Yorkshire); I would say Sooooooo-t-ill with a long oooooo, you also hear it shorter, as in soot from the chimney, but I've never hear the 'th' pronounced together (I'm from Dewsbury.)   There's a place called Southwell in Nottinghamshire, which is pronounced suth-l, but I've met people with his name who pronounce it as it looks, South-well.      Sorry can't be more help   Kim --- On Sun, 10/1/10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [WRY] soothill - southwell To: [email protected] Date: Sunday, 10 January, 2010, 14:26 Happy New Year, listers! Has anyone ever come across the possibility that the two surnames above  might be connected - ie one being derived from the other? I've consulted George  Redmond but he doesn't mention Southwell at all, and gives Soothill as being  derived from a place. I ask because I found (in 1941) a Herbert A Southwell in Sowerby near  Halifax where the A stood for Alginton, a crazy sort of name. I've had  difficulties with the Southwell family possibly from around Heptonstall before,  and I thought he might give me a new angle to follow. He was a grandson of  Squire Southwell who lived at Lower Oak Sowerby in 1871. Lower Oak was the home after this date of a John Barraclough and his wife Sarah Ann Soothill and their  large family .... including Arthur Alginton Barraclough, b 18 November 1889  almost certainly at Lower Oak.