Gender as a Determining Factor in the Family History and Development of the McGee Family

Abstract

This paper examines how gender shaped the family of Nancy Hood McGee, who belonged to one of Georgia's antebellum planter families, across four generations. The McGee family had joined the planter class late in the antebellum period, and after the American Civil War they continued to be prosperous farmers in the former cotton belt. The essay proposes that women in the McGee family played a determining role in the family's economic success during this time period. As such, it relates to scholarship on women in the nineteenth-century American South as well as to the role of women within southern families. It also serves as a case study on the importance of the female legacy in family history and genealogy that should be studied as a model in similar instances. McGee women became active in agriculture, business, and education. Research focused on records that revealed information about the family's social and economic development. No diaries and only a few family letters were located, but information transmitted through oral history proved important. Other sources included census records, legal documents such as wills and deeds, newspaper articles, and church records. The research suggested that women in the McGee family played an active role in shaping the family's development across nearly two centuries. This contrasts with popular images of southern women as weak and delicate, although it corresponds with recent research that has highlighted the accomplishments of nineteenth-century women in the American South. Of particular significance is that women in the McGee family kept a record of accomplishment and achievement across several generations of changing circumstances.

Family History: Fact versus Fiction

“…In addition to my father's versions-as is pointed out by so many authors working in the area of genealogy-I was also armed with my own memories of family stories told to me either by someone from the older generation who experienced things or repeated from their memory of stories told to them by their own ancestors (Hatton 2019;Knight 2017Knight , 2019Schroer and Hine 2017;Smith 2018). (Kretsedemas 2016(Kretsedemas , 2017 discusses these as socially constructed family narratives, which are inevitably affected both by how a family sees itself (or wishes to see itself) and by the narrative mythology of the times.…”

Introduction: Gender’s Influence on Genealogy Narratives

“…The articles contained here demonstrate how gender not only shapes genealogy and family narratives, but the impact it has upon culture over time. Knight's (2017) research centers around a case study of female legacy within family history. Using oral history, a well-regarded genealogical tool that often falls to the older generation for record-keeping and story management (Kornhaber 1996), Knight works to show the role of women within the family and the economic success of the family.…”