Two women called Marina on Covey

The 1817 slave register for John Tharp's Covey estate includes six individuals with a mother called Marina: Yanthes (b. 1789), Dido (1795-1821), Ben Young aka Francis (b. 1800), who was described as Mulatto, Maria (b. 1809), Charity (b. 1812) and Louisa (b. 1816). The 1823 return adds George Spencer (b. 1822). 

There were two women called Marina on the estate who were old enough to have been the mother of any of these children. I have drawn up separate family trees showing relationships that were possible marked with a question mark, and those that are certain without.


The family tree of Marina Little (b. 1773) is discussed in a post called 'Three women called Sally on Covey'
). Marina Little was between the ages of 16 and 49 when these children were born and could, in theory, have given birth to any or all of them. Charity's mother was named specifically as 'Marina (little)'.

The mother of Marina Big (b. 1777) was not named in the 1817 register. Marina Big would only have been 11 when Yanthes was born (and I prefer to believe she wasn't her mother), but she could have given birth to Dido at the age of 22, and to any of the younger children excluding Charity.

Because Marina Big was younger than Marina Little, the epithets presumably indicate that the older Marina was physically smaller. 



Going down a generation, Yanthes had a son called Duke in 1819 and Dido a son called Jack Watson in 1816. 

The mother of Sarah Rodney (b. 1831) was named as Maria Shackleton. No woman of that name was included in the 1817 slave register, but there were two women called Maria. The other Maria (b. 1795) could have been Sarah Rodney's mother (see 'Fanny of Covey'), which is why the relationship is marked with a question mark in the family tree.


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