Jethro,
Yes. My childhood's parents BOTH died from ALS. He died first and she was diagnosed two years later and died within five years.
At my college, there were about 300 full-time faculty. Three of us worked in the same building and all ended up with ALS. That building was sick because several more died young of cancer and two others beat cancer in their 40s. One other guy had lots of weird symptoms, was diagnosed with Lyme disease, then the diagnoses was reversed. He's doing better now that he retired but nobody at Mayo could diagnose him.