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There are several groups of Pennells.
First there are 2 groups documented in the 2015 book "Footnotes to History, The Personal Realm of John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty (1809-1830), A "Group Family"". This was a family filled with shipowners, ships captains, privateers, seamen, stevedores. There is a large contingent in U.K. There is also a second large contingent in Newfoundland, Canada (the remnants of the U.K. Pennell shipping family involved in the cross-atlantic cod fishery but who decided to stay in Newfoundland).
There is also a group of Pennells who are most famously know for building ships in Maine (i.e. Pennellville, in what is now part of Brunswick Maine). The roots of this group go back to the early 1700s (or maybe even further back). Some have linked them back to Pennells from the Channel Islands (i.e. near UK). I have not see any information that links this earlier Maine group to the later U.K. and Newfoundland Pennells.
Gord Pennell (January 2020)