Person:Penina Magee (1)

She appears to have been among the oldest children of Jacob Magee. This woman's nephew, Felix Winchester Magee," gives her names as "Penina," before he enumerates her husband and children, see his letter on the Jacob Magee and Mary Scott family page. However, census and tax returns overwhelmingly demonstrate that her name was Penelope. The 1820 and 1840 Pike County, Mississippi census enumerations show "Penelope Ginn" as head of household (there is no extant 1830 enumeration for Pike). Additionally, the Pike County tax returns for 1821, 1824-5, 1827-9, 1831-42 show her assessed as "Penelope" Ginn (with minor spelling variations) with a modest acreage on Magee's Creek. One return, that of 1822, shows her as "Penny" Ginn, and it is reasonable to assume that this was her nickname. There are no extant returns for 1823, 1826 and 1830.

Why the Felix W. Magee letter transcript shows her as "Penina" is a mystery, but it is important to note that we only have the trascript, and no copy of the original letter. This could be a transcription error. It is also possible that Felix W. knew his aunt by her nickname "Penny," and assumed that the nickname stood for Penina. The Penina name has been perpetuated through Marie Upton's influential family history "The Ginns and Their Kin" (1963), and most recently by my own "Magee Histories: The Progenitors and Descendants of Jacob Magee and Mary Scott" (2005).

[submitted by: Bevin Creel]

1. ↑ Estimated from births of her children.
2. ↑ "Mississippi, State Archives, Various Records, 1820-1951," database at familysearch.org.

   She died between the dates of the Pike County tax returns for 1842 and 1843. The tax return for 1843 is dated 29 June 1843.