Ginn Coat of Arms

To break off from discussing Hertfordshire families as such for a moment, I thought I would mention the Coat of Arms for the Hertfordshire Ginn Family, though strictly the family of George Ginn of Stevenage and the City of London, a Merchant Tailor.

George Ginn was born in the reign of King Henry the 8th in Stevenage.  He went to London and was apprenticed as a Merchant Tailor and later granted Freedom of the City.  He did quite well for himself during the reign of Good Queen Bess, married and had three sons and a daughter - Wilfred, William, Richard and Jane.  All three sons are mentioned in various surviving records and two are known to have married, but the Ginn line died out.  Jane married a man called Cooke and had a number of children, some (as are the Ginn family themselves) mentioned in "Boyds Inhabitants of London"

My correspondent Barry Ginn sent me the extract below which shows that in 1653 or so John Cooke of Giggleswick in Yorkshire no less made claim to the arms of George Ginn there being no heir so any descendants may be able to establish a link.  I should tell you that a good number of the early Ginns of Stevenage were tailors and were finely dressed.  Some link to the "Falcon Inn" which has ancient surviving timbers now forming part of a restaurant in Old Stevenage.

George's sons became Haberdashers and William indeed was in part the subject of an Exhibition not so long ago at the National Portrait Gallery no less see Elizabeth I installation - National Portrait Gallery (npg.org.uk)

Long ago I discovered that the Coat of Arms belonging to the Hertfordshire Ginn family was actually granted to George.  I went to the College of Arms, examined the original record and I and a friend and fellow researcher Jennifer Clark (nee Ginn) had the arms painted and reproduced as a picture (below).  

It is of little use in the sense that no Ginn today (being not descended from George) can strictly actually use the arms, but it has some general interest to the family.