Unlock the Past Seattle Conference Livestream and More - Tue, 14 Aug 2018

Gould Genealogy & History @GouldGenealogy is an Australian company started in 1976 by Alan Phillips. They have a physical store in Adelaide, but sell over 5,000 products for genealogists online at their website including books, ebooks, software and stationary. and include many publications they have exclusive rights to that you can’t get anywhere else.

Joining Alan in the company were his son Stephen and daughter Alona. In 2009 they created the company Unlock the Past, that works with local organizations to put on genealogy events and attract top-notch speakers. Initially, they provided this service for Australia, but have since expanded and have put events on worldwide.

Their latest venture is a one-day event in Seattle, Washington on Sept 6, 2018, being called: Unlock the Past in Seattle. It will have two streams – a DNA stream and an Irish/general stream. Speakers will include DNA experts Blaine Bettinger and Maurice Gleeson, as well as Cyndi Ingle of Cyndi’s list and Wayne Shepheard.

If you plan to be in or near Seattle that day, do go. If not, the exciting news is that they are now offering a livestreaming service for $65 USD that will allow you to watch 5 of the presentations live and the other 5 later. There’s also a $50 USD discount coupon on Gould’s Genealogy ebooks so if you take advantage of this, you get a real deal.

For more information about the Livestream, see their Media Release:

Following the day in Seattle, over 150 people will be joining the Unlock the Past team along with Maurice Gleeson, Cyndi Ingle and Dick Eastman for the 14th Unlock the Past Genealogy Cruise to Alaska leaving the day after the day in Seattle and returning to Seattle on Sept 14. There you will be able to choose from 43 talks from 18 expert speakers from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and England.

I can personally vouch for these cruises as being the greatest thing a genealogist can do for themselves. I was a speaker on the 3rd and 10th cruses and they were both fantastic. A conference at sea mixes vacation with the pleasure of spending time with an interesting group of like-minded family finders that you quickly become good friends with. My wife who is not a genie joined me and loved the vacation, the comradery, and the time by herself when she knew I was safe listing to a talk. I recommended this cruise to Ed Thompson, developer of Evidentia, and he liked the idea and will be one of the speakers on and enjoying the Alaska cruise.  

I am personally so sad not to be going on this particular cruise. It unfortunately overlapped with our Jewish High Holidays this year. So I’ll have to miss the opportunity to get together again with my friends from previous cruises and conferences. I’m hoping Alan continues on with the genealogy cruises for at least another year or two (before a well-deserved retirement) so that my wife and I can partake in at least one more.

I will, however, be flying to Kelowna, B.C. for the K&DGS Harvest Your Family Tree Conference from Sept 28 – 30, where I will be giving a talk about Double Match Triangulation. I look forward to hearing Blaine Bettinger and Cyndi Ingle speak and meeting them in person. I also look forward to getting together again with Helen Smith and Geoff Doherty (from my past cruises) and Dave Obee (from the OGS in Toronto and a Winnipeg talk of his), meeting the experts there on Canadian genealogy, and seeing who else I run into. Cyndi, Helen and Geoff will have earlier finished the Alaska cruise, so it will be fun to talk to them about that.

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Disclaimer:  I am hoping that Alan will give me free access to the Seattle livestream for helping to promote it on my blog. Everything I write about above is my unbiased opinion and is not influenced in any way by whether I get the free access or not.