VIDAL. French Protestant refugees, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1G85. The parent stock were, not many years since, resident at Montauban. The family seem to have ranged from the South of France to the North of Spain, and there are many of the name in Spanish America. The arms borne by the late Rt. Rev. O. E. Vidal, Bishop of Sierra Leone, and his immediate ancestors, indicate a Spanish rather than a French, origin.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.