A record of documented arms, meaning and origin, researched for the Chinn family of England.
Sir Bernard Burke, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, London: Harrison & Sons, 1884
Blazon (the actual original written record)“Barry of six vair and gu”
The Chinn arms were recorded in Gloucester, c. 1620.
Gloucestershire had good farmland, a cloth trade in its valleys and a river carrying goods to Bristol. All three made money, and money bought the estates that brought arms with them.
This is where the arms were entered in the register. Families often moved to other parts of the country, so the same name can turn up in more than one region.
The body that granted and recorded arms in England in this period.
Reigning in England when the Chinn arms are first recorded.
English heraldry allowed arms to be shared by all legitimate descendants of the original owner. These symbols were treated as personal property that moved through the generations to all children. While the eldest son kept the original design, other family members could use the same shield without needing to change it or register their own unique versions.
The surname Chinn has deep roots in the English landscape, with historical records placing members of the family in the county of Gloucester as early as 1620. The name is generally considered a locative or topographical surname, meaning it likely evolved to describe people who lived near a specific landmark or within a particular settlement. In the dialect of the region, the name may have been linked to a "chin," which in Middle English was sometimes used to describe a projecting piece of land or a steep bank near a river. As the family established themselves in the Severn Valley, they became part of the local agricultural and social fabric of Gloucestershire. Over the following centuries, the family name spread from these rural beginnings as individuals moved to find new opportunities, yet the early records from the seventeenth century remain the primary anchor for tracing their ancestral path.
Old English term meaning ship or keel.
