Global Security, Privacy, & Risk Management

War Heroes, Counts, Magistrates, and Lunatics…thanks Ancestry.com! June 16, 2017

I grew up in a broken home and had little interest or knowledge of my genetic family when I was growing up.  Until recently there were few ways to trace one’s lineage with any degree of accuracy.  In 2010 I joined Ancestry.com.  it was still pretty nascent and I didn’t get much value from the limited information available.  Last week I had an epiphany and looked up the obituary of one of the grandparents with which I was familiar.  It had just enough information that I started looking.  I went back to Ancestry.com and BOOM! I was on fire!  In the 7 years I was away from Ancestry.com there were volumes of new information added!  In two days I found over 160 direct relatives.  I had always assumed my relatives had come to the US like many Irish immigrants during the Great Famine of 1845-1852.  I guessed (incorrectly) that my relatives were farming folk from Ireland.  The real story is much more interested!

The first relative I looked up was my maternal grandfather Emery Harry Montgomery.  He was a Colonel in the US Airforce (previously the Army Air Corps) and had served with distinction in WWII where he flew P-47s over Europe and was awarded 4 Air Medals and in 1944 earned a Distinguished Flying Cross!  Colonel Montgomery was the CO of the 2nd Jet squadron in the US and was killed in 1958 while flying an F80. (more…)