I am fortunate to have my grandmother’s account in her own words. I have transcribed it in full here, because her handwriting was a little difficult to read unless you are used to it. It was not all written at one time. The last part shows her hand was shaky. The use of capitals, dashes and quotation marks is hers. It was written between 1898 and 1991. “ My Life I was born on Nov. 11 th 1902. Long ago and far away, - not so far – in Newark, N.J. about 200 miles from here, Lancaster, Pa. My first recollection was waking up in an iron crib in a living room, with the upper part of the windows pushed down so all the cold air could come in. All the d...
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...
Besides myself, Mary Feldweg is the only twin in recent generations in my family. She was baptized Marie Auguste Feldweg at St. John’s (Second) German Lutheran Church in Newark, N.J., along with her twin sister Julie Bertha Feldweg in 1874. [1] They were the daughters of Robert Feldweg and Bertha Mühlpfordt , German immigrants. [2] Their birthday was May 15, 1874. They had an older sister, Henrietta Elizabeth , called Lizzie . Mary’s only brother, Robert Jr., was born on October 13, 1876. Due to the close bond between twins, even though she was only three and a half years old, Mary may have never forgotten when her sister Julia died on Nov. 21, 1877, of enteritis . [3] Could it have been food poisoning , appendicitis , or some other illness? Did the rest of the family have it, but survive? Mary’s younger sister, Bertha, was born on Feb. 28, 1879. Mary and Lizzie were already attending school in 1880. [4] In 1887, their parents bought a house at 37 West Street in Newark ...
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