Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Houston, Michael Allan Blackledge graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the all-male class of 1963. At Navy he learned to love veterans and hate Army. In June of 1963, Mike was commissioned into the Air Force and spent twenty years as a systems analyst. Both his first and last Air Force assignments were at Kirtland Air Force Base which (along with his second career, at Sandia) explains why he resides in Albuquerque today. He spent his next twenty years as a Software Quality Manager for Sandia National Laboratories, retiring from paid government employment on Christmas Eve 2004 after feeding from the public trough for 45 years. Mike was seduced into the world of genealogy when he inherited his Uncle Hobert's Blackledge Family Records in 1977.

He had been in contact with other Blackledge researchers and developed a collaboration that resulted in a team of three working for six years to finally publish in 2002 the 950 page Blackledges in America, a genealogy of Blackledge descendants with roots in the United States. You can find this tome in some two dozen Genealogy Centers through the USA, and a few have the 2nd Edition (2012) as well. Mike's primary responsibilities for Blackledges in America were as Editor and publication facilitator. Mike completed the 640 page Blackledge Stories compilation in 2020, and began work on Every Memory a Story to capture the content behind the genealogy. He currently resides with his (second and final) wife Bonnie at her home in Four Hills Village.