A Gazetteer of the British Isles list 13 places named Woodfield,or Woodfield House, or Woodfield Lodge, or Woodfield Park.

"A Guide to the Origin of British Surnames", listed a Mary Woodfield alias Queen of Hell, 1788. The book states, "Hell was the name given to part of the old law courts at Westminister used at one time as an records office and Fuller refers to a former prison for the King's debtors which was called Hell and doubtless most appropriately."

John Burke's "History of the Commoners of Great Britainand Ireland", Volume iii, p. 222, mentions Stephen Woodifield who married a Mary Lysons of Hempsted. On page 307 a John Woodifield of Yarmouth in Yorkshire is mentioned who married Grace Hutton and they had a child named Mary Woodifield. Then in Volume II,p. 638 and 639 Mary Woodifield married William Beckwith.

Joseph and Edward Woodfield were born in England in 1820 and1822 respectively according to the census of 1850 of Montgomery County, MD. Both were farmers, married, and living in the Second or Clarksburg District of Montgomery County, Maryland. The Woodfield's settled near Cedar Grove and later the families moved east to Woodfield and Damascus. The town of Woodfield was named after Thomas Griffith Woodfield who ran the General Store at that location when the Post office was established.

According to one oral family story, the two boys came to America from England (possibly Cheltenham) with a Baptist Minister named Reis when they were nine and eleven years old. At the time of the Census of 1850, one Edmund J. Reese (Reis) who was 72 years old (born in 1788), listed his birthplace as France, and occupation as Baptist minister, was living with Edward Woodfield. Subsequent research on Edmund J. Reis shows that from 1815 to 1821 he was assistant and then Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Baltimore City. Note also that Joseph Woodfield's first son was named John Reis Woodfield.

According to William R. Woodfield, a son of the founder of the Woodfield Fish and Oyster Co. of Galesville, Maryland, his family oral tradition states that four brothers came from England.  One settled in Galesville, one went West, and two went to Baltimore and then to Montgomery County. Algie Woodfield also told a similar story.

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