Penn Digest Volume 1

ISSUE NO. 1 // VOLUME NO. 1 // AUGUST 2018

PENN DIGEST PENN FAMILY REUNION 2018

AUGUST 10-12 2018 "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouting" Job:8:2

EDITOR'S LETTER I would like to thank all of my family that supported the family reunion and came out. I would like to especially thank those who volunteered their time to help me from a distance.

It took more than I thought to try and put this magazine together. The extensive research that I did on the family will only begin in this magazine. I will be putting together an lineage magazine with all the findings and actual facts.

There were so many of our family members who left and never came back; some who change their first and last names which was actual legal in the 1800s.

Our family lineage stretchs longer than we think. When our ancestors were brought here they were traded and given the last name Penn.

I will be mailing out an lineage book when I am done and if you would like one please contact me at shon.penn@yahoo.com, call me, or leave your name and address on the registry at the reunion.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Shon Penn

Centennial Park & Ferris Wheel  Hours of watery fun can be had in downtown Atlanta at the Fountain of Rings in Centennial Olympic Park and while you are there do not forget to visit the Skyview Ferris Wheel for great views of Atlanta, GA.Â

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Get to Know The Last Name: Penn  Penn is a moderately common surname in the United States. When the United States Census was taken in 2010, there were about 19,409 individuals with the last name "Penn," ranking it number 1,849 for all surnames. Historically, the name has been most prevalent in the Southeast.

However, it is especially popular in the District of Columbia. Penn is least common in the western states.

Where in the World is the PENN Surname Found?

While it originated in England, the Penn surname is now most prevalent in the United States, according to surname distribution data from Forebears, but most common in the British Virgin Islands, where it is the 3rd most popular surname. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Penn surname in Britain was most common, based on percentage of population with the surname, in Northamptonshire, England, followed by Hertfordshire, Worcestershire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

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EXPLORE LAST NAME HISTORY

surname: Penn This is one of the most famous name in firstly British and then American, history. It has a number of possible sources. Firstly, the surname may be locational from the village of Penn in the county of Berkshire. It is first recorded as Penna de Tapeslawa in the Pipe Rolls of the county in 1188, or from the village of Penn in Staffordshire. This is recorded as "Penne" in the Domesday Book of 1086. The derivation of the name is from the early British language of the pre Roman times word "pen", meaning hill.

Walter de la Penne is noted in the Pipe Rolls of Berkshire in 1196. Secondly, it may be a metonymic occupational name for a shepherd or an impounder. This is from the Olde English pre 7th Century word "penn", meaning a sheep or cattle enclosure often built of stone. John ate Penne is listed in the Ministers Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall in 1296. William Penn (1644 - 1718), the founder of Pennsylvania, was the son of Admiral Penn. On his fathers death In 1680 he obtained from King Charles 11nd of England, a grant of lands in New England, where he was to set up his colony of (initially) only Quakers.

However he was not the first "Penn" into America. Francis Penn, aged twenty two, left London in 1632, aboard the ship "Mathew" bound for Virginia, although his later fate is not recorded.

The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Warin de Penne, which was dated 1176, in the "Pipe Rolls of Staffordshire", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

In Western culture, our surnames are traditionally handed down along a patrimonial line. If Your father was a Smith, you are a Smith – if you are male, then your children will also be Smiths. While this was how it worked for most of European society, it was not allowed to cross over to the slaves held by that society.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree, and changed her name several years after escaping to freedom.

And yet, former slaves such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman all had surnames. In fact, nearly every slave freed, whether by pre-war emancipation or the Fourteenth Amendment, had one. But if slaves were not given surnames by their masters, how did this come about?

The common thought is that slaves simply took the names of their masters, at least upon attaining their freedom. If a slave named John was owned by a master with the last name of Anderson, then he was John Anderson. Though this was indeed common, it was far from how it always worked – especially during Abolition.

Before Surnames When African slaves were brought to the new world, they were given first names to use in place of their birth names. Generally speaking, African names were never even recorded in the ledgers of the slave traders. In all likelihood, they simply didn’t bother with them. The tongue was strange and, apart from dealing with African traders (who had learned to deal in broken English), there was no point in learning it.

“I suppose they all had names in their own dialect,” mused Edward Manning, a sailor of the 1860s, “but the effort required to pronounce them was too much for us, so we picked out our favorites and dubbed them ‘Main-stay,’ ‘Cat-head,’ ‘Bull’s-Eye,’ ‘Rope-yarn,’ and various other sea phrases.”

Manning was speaking of African slaves who would be drafted to help on the slave ships.

The bulk of them, however, went unnamed. There was simply no reason to name them.

Once established as slaves in the American colonies, the enslavers had the right to give them any name they wished. Almost without exception, they were given but a single name.

For the sake of court records, when a surname was needed, more often than not, the color of their skin or simply “Negro” was used. Children born into slavery were often named by their mothers, though the masters had the final say. A surname, however, being unnecessary, was never given.

With the slave population exploding all across the new world, England began to realize that surnames were incredibly important, at least for the sake of bookkeeping. In Trinidad, controlled by the Empire, “the name of the superior relation” was often given as the surname. When no such relation existed, slaves were often handed whatever names the slave traders and owners cared to give them. Surnames such as Infamie, Demoralisation, Chagrin, and Misere were all common on the islands. Though the names were legal, they were probably carried no farther than the ledgers.

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If a black American – free or slave – took a surname, it was unlikely to be respected by the majority of whites. In countless newspaper articles, black people were referred to usually by their first names. If any reference to the surname was mentioned, it was often noted that the slave “called himself John Edwards.” Or in the case of advertising for a runaway, the ad might read: “negro fellow by the name of GEORGE, but calls himself GEORGE LEWIS.” In a similar case, an enslaver was looking for his slave named Ben who “calls himself Ben Sharp.” 5 For the most part, it was left up to the slaves themselves to decide whether or not they would give themselves surnames – the enslavers didn’t really care. Surnames among the slaves were most popular in areas which had the most stability. Large plantations in the Mississippi River Valley, as well as along the Georgia and South Carolina Coasts saw slaves actually being able to hand down names to their children. Rarely did slaves use the name of their masters in this regard. Curiously, slaves would often take the name of a nearby family of enslavers who they believed provided better treatment for their slaves.

The Penn family name was found in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920. The most Penn families were found in the USA in 1880. In 1840 there were 36 Penn families living in Ohio. This was about 16% of all the recorded Penn's in the USA. Ohio had the highest population of Penn families in 1840.

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In 1880 there were 872 Penn families living in Virginia. This was about 18% of all the recorded Penn's in the USA. Virginia had the highest population of Penn families in 1880.

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In 1920 there were 232 Penn families living in Virginia. This was about 9% of all the recorded Penn's in the USA. Virginia had the highest population of Penn families in 1920.

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What are Dreams?

So many people just exist; they have no goals, desires or aspirations. They may have been ambitious at one time in their life but ran into disappointments, detours and failures. After a while they chose not to reach for the stars and settled for the mundane.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Painter, sculptor, architect and poet once said: "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." In most instances, that which lies within each of us is much more than we ever come to know. We give in to mediocre and find ourselves settling for less than we are capable of.

We dared to dream as children and then meet up with real life as adults and relinquish our visions as unreal possibilities. It is a shame we often cease living, learning and achieving and meet a premature demise. We become comfortable in less and determine the work to become more is not worth the effort. The possibility of attaining greatness becomes an unattainable desire of our own decision. We give up on ourselves and our dreams and possibilities. Oh, what greatness goes undiscovered, what possibilities lay covered with fear and lack of ambition.Perhaps you have run into people who lacked faith in you, and your abilities, putting doubt on any dreams or visions you shared with them. You are not the observation others have of you; you are the thoughts you have, the actions you take. Others are not in control of your dreams and visions; they cannot diminish your desires. You alone are in charge of what you do with your life. We should always set goals, and we should desire to continue to achieve and pursue dreams and visions no matter our age. Dreams are not just for the young.

Achievements in life should continue until life has ended.