William Ginn of Great Hormead d.1568

William Ginn was one of the two younger sons of his father Henry of Anstey, I do not know who was the eldest of him and his brother Thomas.  

William would have been born soon after 1500 and was a Husbandman, what today we would call a smallholding farmer.  This would mean that he owned enough land to sustain his family but no more.

His father made some significant bequests to him in his will of 1539 and it seems certain (as it was in the case of his brother Thomas) that Henry bought land for him in Great Hormead when William married.

William is known to have married Ellen Brand, a daughter of Thomas Brand senior, a significant yeoman in  Great Hormead and the ancestor of the Lords Brand and Viscounts Dacre.  William's brother Thomas married Elizabeth Brand, Ellen's sister.

I know from Lay Subsidy records that William and Ellen were living in Anstey until 1543, when they moved to Great Hormead.

Manorial papers for Gt. Hormead do not survive for this period.  However William seems to have held the property or tenement that later came to be known as "The Ginns".  The name of this property survived for centuries.  It seems to have consisted of some 35 acres or so.   Some, at least, of this land was held freehold but it was mostly held "by copy".

The exact location of the land that William held is unknown, but by the 1800s it was absorbed into Hormead Hall Farm.  All we know for certain is that he held some freehold land in Hare Street. 

William Ginn died in 1568 and in his will (Essex Record Office) he left his land to his wife for life and then to his eldest son Thomas.

Ellen lived on and in April 1588 (three months before the attack of the Spanish Armada) she entered into a series of deeds under which a house and small piece of freehold land in Hare Street (which was to pass down the family) was transferred to her eldest son Thomas.  These deeds survive (Hertford Record Office ) and one is copied above with Ellen's signature or mark.

 Ellen died in 1592, she must have been in her 80s, a great age for the time.

William and Ellen had a good number of children:

Thomas (Husbandman) the eldest son - married Martha Wigg 

Henry (Tailor) married Rachel Wigg

Richard (Tailor of Stocking Pelham) established the Ginn family of Cheshunt

Michael (Labourer) the ancestor of the Ginn line from this family today

Jonas (Tradesman of Standon) a bachelor who left a very informative will

Mary married John Snell alias Wheeler

Margaret married ______ Beddall