Jennifer Lou Cain was born on September 22, 1955 in Indiana to A.J. Cain and Juanita Cain (nee Willis). She had one sister, Ann Elizabeth Cain (1945-2008). On July 19, 1972 she married David Earl Chaney in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jennifer and David had one daughter together, Kassandra “Kassie” R. Chaney (born January 1974). They later divorced.

In 1975 Jennifer graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. She later also received her Masters of Public Administration from Indiana University. On September 28, 1980 she married George W. Bohrnstedt (born September 1938), a professor of Sociology at Indiana University. George had two children from a previous marriage: Brian Russell Bohrnstedt (born December 18, 1965) and Matthew “Matt” Montgomery Bohrnstedt (born September 3, 1969).

In the 1990s Jennifer began working as an independent scholar in U.S. Civil War history. In 1999 she received the Haas Research Fellowship and participated in a Civil War Round Table in Pennsylvania. She has presented at several symposia and round tables for Civil War history and published several independent papers. In 2000 Jennifer published her first book, Soldiering with Sherman: The Civil War Letters of George F. Cram. Jennifer's research for that book led to her next topic of interest, the story of soldier William H. Bradbury. During a stop at the Spencer Research Library she discovered a huge collection of materials on Bradbury donated by one of Bradbury's descendants, Professor Mary Grant. She published her manuscript on Bradbury, titled While Father Is Away: The Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury, in 2003.

Bohrnstedt has since published two more books, Views From My Schoolroom Window: The Diary of Schoolteacher Mary Laurentine Martin (2006) and Snapshots of a Century in African American Lives (2009).

[information retrieved from http://www.civilwarsoldiers.com/author.htm#jennifer, high school and university yearbooks, public records, findagrave obituaries, marriage records.]