The British scholar Austen Henry Layard visited the village in the 1840s, spending one night there. In his writings he mentions that there were 200 families living in the village, a police station and a church. Layard also notes that Catholicism replaced the original denomination of those people who were the followers of the Assyrian Church of the East. The village has a church dedicated to St John the Baptist which was originally built in the seventeenth century but was later rebuilt due to its destruction in 1987. The Anfal genocide also led to the damage of a shrine dedicated to Mart Shmuni. In 2004 Kurds from neighbouring villages stole agricultural lands and pastures from the villagers of Dawodiya.