Deen like all variants of the Dean surname has two distinct origins. One origin is in the languages of the British Isles where there are many variations of the word den - a place.  These include the Old English dene meaning “a bare, sandy tract or low sand hill near the sea,” probably from the Flemish dune; and another - the Saxon dene "a place at a high woodland pasture," in essence a plateau.  Dennes were also rough clearings which threaded through the English woodlands and gave free passage to livestock between pastures. There are Celtic variants dunom or dun, and the Welsh din which all mean a "fortress, fortified place, or camp.” 

These words became part of the historical culture as place names - used as a prefix and suffix,  the most famous is probably the Forest of Dean (Dene) near Gloucestershire which derives from a valley near Mitcheldean, with areas known as Dene Magna (large) and Dene Parva (small).  Similar place names were used for Deene Hill near Kent, the Deen River in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny and the Temple Deen in County Donegal, Ireland. Each is an unrelated place, with unrelated peoples who took their surname from the location where they lived.

The second origin is the Norman French word Dene which refers to the Dani or Danish.  In middle ages Denmark (Danmark) included all the Norse countries – present day Denmark, Norway, Sweden, as well as Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Jutland (today the Schleswig Holstein region of Germany).  In the 9th century Danes (Vikings) conquered and settled many regions of the British Isles including the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands and territory as far south as East Anglia, Northumbria and York.  Danish lords eventually melded with the local population (an amalgam of Celtic Britons, Celts, Picts, Welsh, and Germanic Angles, Saxons, Juts, etc.), and were even recorded in Willaim the Conquerer’s Domesday Book of 1085.  These people took the name surname Dane, and over the centuries it was Anglicized.

Names which referred to property titles like de Dena, de Den, de la Dene were changed in the 16th Century during the reign of Elizabeth the 1st  in what is called the “great vowel shift.”  As romance languages from the Continent mixed with Middle English the spelling of Dene became Deane, eventually dropped the final e and become the common Dean.   Outside of England though, due to the lack of standardization in language, not to mention a predominantly illiterate population, surnames “floated” - Dene became Den, Denn, Deen, Deene as well as O'Deen, Denning and Denny.  Interestingly as people emigrated from the British Islands to England’s colonies in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, many of those variations were re-homogenized to the common Dean.

ORIGINS OF THE DEEN FAMILY

According to The Heraldry of the Deane Family “there were only four distinct Dene families in Britain and that all others are branches or off-shoots of those four.  He (Sir Bathurst Deane) also states that one branch came to England with the Danish invaders in the ninth century and another came from Normandy during the reign of Edward the Confessor.  It is of record the family is one of ancient lineage and that its authentic history can be traced to 1039 A.D..”

One of the lords was the Saxon Roberto de la Dena who was pincera or master of libations for King Edward (kind of a combination head sommelier and banquet manager). A second was the Norman lord was Ulric, son of William FitzNorman (son of Norman) whose family was given the Royal Forest of Dene.  Ulric took the place name de Dene and his children were called de Dene or de Denn from that time on. These two Denes, along with the Danish lord and one other Dene are all recorded in the Domesday Book (the census of 1085) as the first Denes five centuries before surnames became common in England. 

The question is – could those same four families be the source of all the Dean families in the world today?  Dene, Dean, Deen, Deene, and Deane in England; Dean, Deane and Dane in Scotland; and Dean, Deane, Deen, Denn, Dunn, Denning, Denny (and many others) in Ireland?  Without standardized spelling; with multiple national and linguistic sources (English, Saxon, Gaelic, Welsh, Flemish, French, dialects of Danish and German among others); and with most families not adopting surnames until the 15th century - how do we really figure it out?  Well first let’s see what history tells us about the Deens.

First, given that our family spells it’s name Deen it's reasonable to propose that our ancestors left England before the great vowel shift.  Looking outside England we find the greatest concentration of Dene names not effected by the vowel shift in Ireland.  Ireland has history of Deen individuals in Counties Antrium, Kerry and Kilkenny as well as several place names with the spelling Deen.  So although additional research is required, it’s possible that our family might be descended from an Irish branch of Deens. Deen though rare in Ireland today follows only Deane, and Dean as the most common spelling of the surname. Interestingly though these different spellings are not found in the same counties, suggesting differences in family relations and origin.

History records Denes arriving in Ireland as part of the Norman Conquest of 1170.  Thomas Fitz Anthony, the Seneschal of Leinster, died in 1229 without leaving surviving male issue. After his death, his manor and properties were partitioned between his five daughters and a part, which included Grennan Castle in Thomastown, became the property of a William de Denn, who had married Fitz Anthony's granddaughter Emma. The family was called de Denn and De Denne at that time, and in the Ormond Deeds from 1270, always de not le, confirming that they were derived from an English not French origin. The Denn family settled in the areas of Kilkenny and Waterford. The seat of the family for much of the medieval period remained Grennan Castle, which now stands in ruins beside the river Nore, half a mile southeast of Thomastown. Notably there were also two mediaeval Irish bishops surnamed Denn who had something to do with Saint Nick.

The Denn coat of arms were granted in 1665, an ermine symbolizes a ducal mantle, and in this instance, the family of Butler, Dukes of Ormond, out of whose estates the present day County Kilkenny was carved. A fess or broadband across the center of the shield contains the arms of two families, one Celtic, the othe

r Norman, thereby signifying the historic and harmonious fusion of two great cultures. Silver garbs or sheaves on a black field heraldically represent Dermot MacMorrough, King of Leinster, while a gold fret on red is associated with the family of Den or de la Denn.  This coat of arms is distinct from other Dean families of the time and again points to a separate family lineage.

Ultimately the Denn and Deen families in Kilkenny lost all their lands in the wake of Oliver Cromwell's invasion of Ireland in 1694.  After the anti-Catholic actions of the late 17th century, many dispossessed landowners took to the woods and hills to live "upon their keeping" while they harassed Cromwell's adventurers and soldiers who had taken their lands. These woodsmen were known as Tories or Rapparees, and Denn family members are specifically identified among them.

At just this time, historical records show that men named Deen began to leave Ireland in large numbers and settle in English colonies around the world.  Specifically Deens left Kilkenny in great numbers throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

There were of course other Denes.  Deanes were among the 1641 proprietors in County Mayo, recorded in the Books of Survey and Distribution. Dane was a principal Irish name in the 1659 census for County Roscommon, both of these were possibly offshoots of the "Tribe" as certainly were the Deanes of Balrobuck near Tuam.  Dean was a prominent name among the Scots-Irish

So what does this tell us about our family?  Was Benjamin Deen from Ireland? And are we related to all those other Deans?  Unfortunately without clear records we still don’t know. 

There is another way to investigate our connection – or lack there of – to other Deans, and that is by way of genetics. 

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