“Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” was entered for copyright deposit on June 5, 1854, by Firth, Pond & Co. The name Jennie, not Jeanie, appears consistently in the draft text of Foster’s manuscript book. 

The composer’s niece, Evelyn Foster Morneweck, suggests that the publisher asked for the change but avowed that the song was always known to the Foster family as “Jennie with the Light Brown Hair.” She writes in The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family,

[In] the first few years of Stephen’s and Jane’s married life, there were several homecomings and several leavings, and Jane went oftener to New York while Stephen was there than the record shows. “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” a composition that many persons consider Stephen’s most beautiful love song, was published in June, 1854, and indicates more than anything else, that Stephen was reconciled to his young wife, the owner of the lovely tresses. The writer of these Chronicles never heard this song called Jeanie by Morrison Foster. It was always “Jennie with the Light Brown Hair,” and Jennie you will find in Stephen Foster’s original manuscript book. Jane was not called Jeanie by her family, but was often addressed by the affectionate diminutive, Jennie. It is more than likely that the publishers suggested to Stephen that he change it to the more euphonious and romantic Jeanie, as more appealing to public taste. But Jennie it was to Stephen, and Jennie it was to his brother Mit.