Arthur Edmund Flegel is the son of immigrant German-Russian parents, Johann and Julianne (Pflugrath) Flegel. Born in 1917 in the wheat fields of North Dakota and raised in the wheat fields of Kansas and the sugar beet fields of Colorado. In his youth, Arthur was intrigued with the realization that while his parents and their close friends claimed to be German, they readily admitted that Russia was their native country from where they had emigrated for the New World, especially the United States and Canada.

Arthur Flegel accumulated considerable genealogical data from a variety of sources including microfilms, periodicals, family histories and interviews, along with his mother's remarkable memory and basic information from Dr. Karl Stumpp. Using materials he had collected over the years, he published the Reuscher-Schnell Kinship book in 1975 relating to his wife's genealogy, and the Flegel-Pflugrath Kinship book in 1978 covering his own paternal and maternal lines.

Gathering the materials for both kinship books became a "once in a lifetime" experience in terms of Arthur and Cleora (Reuscher) Flegel's travels, which included interviews with many people, not only in the USA, but Canada, Germany, Russia, Argentina and Brazil. Some of whom have become lasting friends.