72 Talks on the 10th Unlock The Past Genealogy Cruise - Wed, 2 Dec 2015

It may be that the 72 talks on this #utpcruise from New Zealand to Australia are the most sessions possible to attend at a single genealogy conference ever. The cruise is a long one, 18 days, and the sessions are spread out comfortably, with none held during shore leave so everyone can enjoy the ports of call.

My wife and I are really looking forward to the cruise. Our city has recently once again become the frozen tundra that is a regular occurrence at this time of year in Winnipeg. Combining a winter vacation to shorts and swimsuit weather with genealogy couldn’t be more fun.

I’m very excited for the genealogy side of the cruise. The conference attendees will have top quality speakers and will definitely be more than overwhelmed with the variety and amount of information presented. Key speakers include Judy Russell (the Legal Genealogist) and Paul Blake from England. I’m looking forward to getting to know them and to meet back up with other speakers I know from the 3rd cruise: Jan Gow, Shauna Hicks, Helen Smith, Rosemary Kopittke, Geoff and Marg Doherty as well as Alan Phillips and Alona Tester from Gould Genealogy who run the Unlock The Past Cruises and Lecture Series.

I’ll be giving 8 talks that attendees should find interesting:
1. How to improve research with source-based genealogy
2. Using life events and ages to solve genealogy problems
3. Organizing your genealogy computer files … the better way to do it
4. A beginner’s guide to Jewish genealogy
5. Names, events, dates and places aren’t enough. Here’s what you can and should record
6. Making the most of your genealogy software
7. Why genealogy is everyone’s solemn duty
8. What’s in a date? Using dates effectively

Alona just sent me the speaker’s sticker for the cruise which I’m proud to display here and I’ve also added to the right margin of my blog.

In addition, I will be giving one of my talks (#1 on source-based genealogy) as part of Unlock The Past’s seminar tour associated with the cruise. My talk will be in Melbourne, Australia on Sunday, February 28. If you live in or near Melbourne and would like to hear my talk or meet with me, please register at the event page to attend. Paul Blake will be the main speaker that day.

The ship will have expensive and limited wifi, but I do plan to tweet and blog while on board, hopefully nearly every day to report on the conference.

The cruise takes place from 14 February to 3 March 2016. The countdown timer on my phone says:  72 days to go!