My name is David 'Dave' Kuntz. I currently reside in Kentucky and have for the last 32years. I am originally from Ohio, born in Toledo but raised in a small city southeast of there called Tiffin. I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1959, serving 8 years in various posts, primarily in submarine and submarine repair. My most interesting service was aboard a Navy Icebreaker, USS Atka (AGB-3) from 1962-1965. I also commissioned a brand spanking new Polaris Submarine Tender the USS Canopus (AS-32) in 1966 in Charleston, SC.
After my Navy enlistment, I joined big blue (IBM Corp) in 1967 as a data processing customer engineer (maintenance and repair) and retired as an International Business Development Manager with Lexmark International, Inc., a IBM divested subsidiary, in 1997. I have been married for 44 years, have 3 grown children, 4 grandchildren (3 boys and one Princess), and one darling great-granddaughter.
I understand one never really fully retires 'at retirement' and I am no exception. After dabbling about doing business consulting for a few years I have finally settled into doing only leisurely and stimulating things. I fell in love with genealogy while casually assembling a modest family tree to give to my descendants. It got in my blood and now I make frequent trips to libraries, probate courts and cemeteries and the like, plus hundreds of hours on the expanding genealogy sites of the internet, seeking out details about my ancestors, how/where they lived, their descendants, etc. How boring to most. Each mystery I solve creates a dozen others to be solved. I currently have a data base of nearly 27,000 names with lines and dots connected to my paternal and some maternal blood lines. Yet I consider myself to still be a novice at it and am sure this will be a lifelong quest.
I have recently sent my DNA sample to Family Tree DNA, where it was typed for matches against other individuals who volunteered for this program and then stored for 20 years to be compared to a continuing flow of samples. My initial interest is to any tie ins to the 'Counts/Coons' family some of which have kicked off a project with Family Tree DNA. To date I have had a few dozen -13 marker matches -with other men, none with my surname, so our relationship is distinct but distant. I have yet to match anyone on all 25 markers.
On a whim, shortly after retirement, I took flying lessons, attaining my single engine private pilot license in summer of 1999. I initially purchased, in partnership with 2 other pilots, a 1956 Cessna 172 Skyhawk, that has been meticulously maintained and looks almost as new as when it came out of the factory 51 years ago. Then in the summer of 2005 we found this pristine condition 1969 IFR certified Piper Cherokee 140 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that we just had to have. So we reluctantly sold the Cessna to a man in Indiana. I miss that airplane. Like a classic cars, we take great pride and pleasure in tinkering, cleaning and primping though it can certainly be time and cash consuming. It is such an exhilarating and freeing experience flying these aircraft on a crisp clear day where you can see 30-40 miles to the horizon. And such a rewardingly satisfying feeling to manage that aircraft to a safe landing in more complex conditions. There is a saying among pilots that "a good landing is one you can walk away from without injury. A great landing is one where you can also fly the airplane again. " So far I have enjoyed many many great landings and hope that trend continues, as do my partners.
Anyway, this site is not dedicated to me. I just wanted to briefly introduce you to the person who is trying to introduce my family to the hundreds and thousands of individuals out there who share my blood .