Lineage: Mike, Doris Louise, Herman Claud, Samuel Martin, Thomas Floyd Sr., Alfred, Nathan, Thomas, Solomon, Solomon born 1680 Lancashire, England
James Michael “Mike” Arnett was born in San Jose, CA on 2 Jun 1951 and grew up primarily in Morgan Hill, about 20 miles south. After graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1973, Mike spent 25+ years in the Air Force, retiring 1 Jan 1999 as a full colonel. During his career, Mike was a C-141 cargo pilot, operations analyst, exchange officer with the Peruvian Air Force, space warning radar squadron commander, and the Air Force Space Command lead for future GPS capabilities (which are included in the GPS satellites being launched today). Following his Air Force career, he worked in the defense/space industry until his second retirement at the end of 2012. Full-time retirement afforded Mike additional time to work on genealogy, though his wife says he’s not retired, he’s working for her.
Mike has been researching his Arnett line off and on for over 40 years. Researching Maryland records in the late 90s and again in 2009-2011, Mike identified his previously unidentified immigrant Arnett ancestor as William Arnett 1668-1734, of Talbot County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In 2013, Mike started working on the other lines in his family and thanks to his mother’s first cousin (an Allred), started dabbling in genetic genealogy. Like most genealogists, Mike is primarily self-taught via online resources, local genealogical society presentations and trial and error. He has also taken a course in Beginning to Mid-Level Genealogy from the University of Strathclyde and a course based on Blaine Bettinger’s “The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy.” He manages DNA kits for about 15 family members in Ancestry, My Heritage, Family Tree DNA, GEDMatch and LivingDNA. In July 2020 Mike became the administrator of the Family Tree DNA Arnett/Arnott Project. His immigrant ancestor William is his current brick wall—nothing is known of him prior to the recording of his first son’s baptism in St. Michael’s Parish, Talbot County, Maryland in 1698.
Mike maintains his primary tree on Ancestry, username pmmknitco, tree name Arnett/Allred. If you do not have an Ancestry subscription and would like to browse his tree there, please contact him and he will invite you so you can see it for free. The tree is also on FTDNA, MyHeritage, Geni and Geneanet.
