There was a Ginn family in Great Dunmow in Essex from the earliest recorded times, ie from the early 1500s. Indeed, there are one or two recorded instances of them as witches or the victims of witchcraft in the 1500s.
But although there are lots of references of them right through to 1700 or thereabouts, the overwhelming evidence is that this family died out in the male line in Dunmow by 1712 or so. Though the Great Waltham Ginn family sprang from them.
So the question has always been - who was the Edward Ginn who turned up in 1737 at Great Dunmow apparently a widower marrying an Elizabeth Smith there in that year. To be honest, the only thing I am certain about on this, is that I am uncertain on this. I have a theory, but that theory could be wrong and there is no evidence to point researchers in any particular direction.
He may, I repeat may, be the Edward Ginn from Braughing who was certainly alive in 1727 (see my post of 4th September 2012 on William Ginn of Braughing in my blog on ginn-hertfordshire.blogspot.com ) but that would require certain information (principally burials of his first wife and first son John) to be missing in the records, and would equally rely on his first son Edward (there is no baptism for this Edward in Essex) being six years older that we would think. So I may be trying to force a "fit", there may be another explanation.
What we know is that Edward Ginn of Great Dunmow had two sons, Edward and John (the latter died in infancy) and two daughters Elizabeth and Mary (Mary married Revnell Challis at Great Dunmow in 1770). Edward senior died in 1746 - and that is it.
Edward junior (with whom this post is principally concerned) married Susannah Staines at Great Dunmow in 1764. Ned was a Labourer. He and Susan had seven children, Ned dying in 1819 with a quoted age of 88 (making him born in circa 1731). Susan had died in 1815 with a quoted age of 73 which would have made her ten years younger than Ned.
The principal reason for this post is the children and, in particular, what I know of two of their sons
Ned and Susan had seven children as I say
Edward - the first died in infancy, the second married Elizabeth Abbot at Great Dunmow in 1803. He is the ancestor of all the later Dunmow Ginns, including Ron Ginn with whom I have corresponded.
Mary - married Joseph Smith at Great Dunmow in 1789
Susannah - married John Green at Great Dunmow in 1792
Ann - married James Downham at Great Dunmow in 1797
Joseph - born in 1780. He joined the West Essex Militia during the earlier years of the Napoleonic Wars. Whilst in the Militia he married Elizabeth Gipson (likely a Great Dunmow girl) at Chelmsford in 1803. No children are known. I have known the following for years (so many I have discarded the notebooks) but he subsequently volunteered for the Regular Army from the Militia and when I did a sweep of the British Napoleonic era army death records (it took months) in the mid 1990s.I found that this man died in 1807 in the West Indies, likely of disease. He was 27.
James- has been harder to trace than his brother Joe. He was born in 1774. In the 1790s he joined his brother Joseph in the West Essex Militia. I knew that he got a lady called Ann pregnant in 1810 or so, as in 1811 she turned up at Great Dunmow having a daughter Jane , purporting to be the wife of James Ginn "soldier".
There was no record (unlike Joe's) of Jim volunteering out of the West Essex Militia, and I could not find him for many years, and then in 2015 a record turned up which suggested that he had joined the 3rd Foot ("the Buffs") a fine infantry regiment. I then accessed the muster records.
James Ginn joined the 3rd Foot on 1st May 1811 - he was taken into the 2nd Battalion and then transferred to the 1st Battalion (who had fought brilliantly and lost many men at Albuera on 16th May 1811 - below) and went to Deal Fort in Kent.
My suspicion is that he already had the early signs of consumption, ie tuberculosis. He sailed for Portugal and Wellington's army, landed and the last record of him in the sun light is "on the march in Portalegre" which was and is a stronghold on the border near Badajoz in Spain where the 3rd had retired to rest and regroup after Albuera (below). It was pretty much the last thing James saw. He was taken into hospital some months afterwards and sadly died there on 13th August 1812 - he was 38. (WO12/2114 National Archives). What happened to his daughter Jane is a mystery - I hope she lived.
