[2] His sister, Margaret Edwards, was active in the Council for Aboriginal Rights in Melbourne in the 1960s.
[3] Another brother, Jack McGinness, was also an activist, and the Northern Territory's and Australia's first elected Aboriginal union leader in 1955 as president of NAWU.
[4][5] When their father died, McGinness, aged eight, and his siblings were taken into Kahlin Compound for "half-caste" children in Darwin.
[2] McGinness served in Borneo in World War II, and upon his return worked on the docks in Cairns,[6] when he was active in the Waterside Workers' Federation.
[8] He visited Adelaide, in South Australia, several times, to liaise with activists such as John Moriarty.