Retired from a Human Resources management position with a major corporation, Ross has degrees in Economics from Binghamton University and Industrial Relations from Cornell. A long-time family genealogist, his American ancestry is early British Isles immigrants—all ancestors born after 1800 resided in rural Washington County, New York. His current focus is on documenting this little researched line of the Williams family that migrated from New England to the Argyle Patent in Eastern New York after the Revolution, and on to Western New York and beyond in succeeding generations.