ANCESTOR NUMBER 1: JAMES JOSEPH KIRNER I’ve decided to make a new start on this blog. I’ve decided to go through the ancestors in Ahnentafel table order, a numbering scheme widely used in genealogy software. And in order to speed up the writing process, I’ve decided to forego using footnotes, since this blog is mainly just for our family. I'm hoping to go through the ancestors, doing one a week. We'll see! My first ancestor was James Joseph Kirner, who I barely knew. So, I am using publicly available records and a private photo to describe him for you. He was born on 15 March 1931 at a hospital in Summit, New Jersey, the youngest son of Leo/Lee Kirner and his wife, nee Agnes Fennessey. This was during the Depression, but Lee and Agnes lived in Chatham, New Jersey, a well-to-do suburb of New York City. Many women still gave birth at home instead of in a hospital. Jimmy had only one sister, Mary, who was about ten years older than him. Jim lived in Chatham all during childhood, g...