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Speaking of cruises... It seems this newsletter is full of news about genealogy cruises as we are now at the height of the cruise season. Looking ahead to next year, the 12-day 5th Annual Legacy Genealogy Cruise was announced a few weeks ago but now the special guest lecturer has been announced as well.
The following was written by Millennia Corporation, producers of Legacy Family Tree software:
The 2008 Legacy Genealogy Cruise to Europe will feature one of genealogy's favorites - DearMYRTLE! The 5th Annual Legacy Genealogy Cruise, held July 16-28, 2008, will leave Dover, England and will sail to Copenhagen, Denmark; Berlin, Germany; St. Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm, Sweden; and back to Dover.
RootsTelevision has captured video of what is believed to be the world's first genealogical wave that took place a few days ago -- appropriately enough -- on a somewhat wave-tossed cruise ship. It shows the enthusiasm of the folks in the Wholly Genes genealogy cruise. You can see the video of "the wave" at http://www.rootstelevision.com/blogs/megans-rootsworld/2007/11/worlds_first_genealogical_wave.html
It has been quiet on this newsletter for the past week - simply because I wasn't here much. I was on board the Caribbean Princess cruise ship, along with about 350 other genealogists. We all enjoyed a wide variety of genealogy presentations made by several genealogy experts, including:
Robert Charles Anderson Tony Burroughs John Cardinal Barbara Grempler John Grenham (from Ireland) Sandra Hewlett Lee Hoffman Cyndi Howells Hank Jones Kent Riggins Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak John Titford (from England) Bob Velke and myself
I am packing my bags and hitting the road again. I am leaving home for three weeks and will be traveling by land, sea, and air.
I'll spend the first week on board a cruise ship with several hundred other genealogists. This is the annual cruise sponsored by Wholly Genes, producers of The Master Genealogist genealogy software and of Archive CD Books USA, which makes digital reproductions of old books and other materials of value to genealogists. I have been on this cruise before and always found it to be top notch. I suspect this year's cruise will be at least as good. This year's cruise will depart Fort Lauderdale and make stops in St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Princess Cays, Bahamas. The ship returns to Fort Lauderdale at the end of the one-week cruise.
Like most genealogy cruises, the Wholly Genes Cruise combines genealogy classes at sea, daytime excursions in exotic ports, and luxurious accommodations at all times. Three things differentiate the Wholly Genes cruises: the large number of speakers, the large number of presentations, and the large number of attendees.
I just returned home from a great vacation. In the past three weeks, I took a cruise to Hawaii and then spent a few additional days on Oahu. Kicking off the trip in high style, I spent nearly two weeks on a cruise ship with a group of delightful genealogists.
Millennia Corporation produces the popular Legacy Family Tree software for Windows systems. The company also holds an annual cruise for genealogists, and this year it was a cruise from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the Hawaiian Islands. This year was my first time with the Legacy folks, and I must say that I enjoyed the trip immensely.
Dublin's Shelbourne hotel has appointed a genealogy butler in a bid to lure high-spending American guests. The genealogist will offer guests one-hour advisory sessions and help them to draw up practical research plans. Those who can't wait to get started on the historical trail can also e-mail their family details before they arrive to give the genealogist a head-start.
I'll be off this week to the annual conference of the National Genealogical Society in Richmond, Virginia. The conference is being held Wednesday through Saturday, May 16 to 19. If everything goes according to plan, I will be posting articles and possibly pictures on the newsletter's web site daily from the conference.
This year's event is shaping up to be a good one, as always. If you can be in Richmond this week, I suspect you will enjoy the conference. If you cannot be there in person, hopefully you can obtain a peek at what goes on by reading this newsletter.
If you are at the conference, please stop by Booth #72 and say "Hello."
I'll be there much of the time for all four days, and newsletter editor
Pam Cerutti will be joining me on Friday and Saturday. We hope to meet
as many newsletter subscribers as possible.
I had a great day this past Saturday. I flew to San Diego on Friday and attended a joint meeting of the The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego and The San Diego Genealogical Society. I gave several talks to the 186 attendees. I also managed to find a couple of good Mexican meals, something that is difficult to find where I live. I then grabbed a red-eye flight home on Saturday evening.
It seems that I am traveling a lot these days. I have a "quick trip" scheduled this time: out to San Diego and back over the weekend. It is a mere 6,000 mile round-trip. I'll be presenting at the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego and the San Diego Genealogical Society at an all-day seminar on Saturday. I hope to meet lots of newsletter readers there.
I'll be back shortly thereafter but will be in the air much of the time. Don't look for too many new articles for a couple of days, OK?
The concierge service at any good hotel offers many valuable services. The concierge can help you with dinner reservations, theater tickets, sightseeing tours and much more. Now the Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa in Edinburgh has teamed up with genealogy expert Sheila Duffy to introduce Scotland’s first ever hotel Genealogy Concierge service for visitors to Scotland.
BBC Wales recently ran a story about a group of Americans who returned to visit the birthplace of their ancestor. Dr. Thomas Wynne left Caerwys, North Wales in 1672. He traveled to the New World with fellow Quaker William Penn. The group even visited the room where their ancestor held secret Quaker meetings.
It is an interesting program that may inspire you to make a trip to your ancestor's homeland. You can view the entire story if you click on the above icon.
I am headed out this week to Hartford, Connecticut. I'll be attending the New England Regional Genealogical Conference, often called "NERGC."
While I will be carrying a laptop computer and various wireless network devices, there is always a possibility of being left incommunicado. Don't be surprised if there are no new articles posted to the daily newsletter for a few days. Next Sunday's weekly Plus Edition e-mail newsletter also might be delayed by a day or two. Luckily, Hartford is a short trip from my home so any delays should be minimal.
The Library of Congress stores thousands of rare public domain documents relating to America's history - documents that are slowly decaying. Now the library of the U.S. citizenry is about to begin an ambitious project to digitize these fragile documents and publish the results online in multiple formats. The project is built on free open source software (OSS), including a Linux operating system cluster of over 1,000 machines. The documents will be made available to the public at no charge.
This is a quick note to say that I am back home again after two weeks on the road. I spent the first week on a business trip in Orange County, California, and the following seven days on board the Wholly Genes 2006 Genealogy Conference and Cruise (described in another article).
Various computer gremlins struck, although the damage wasn't too bad. I was hampered by an extremely slow and expensive Internet connection on board the cruise ship and by a database problem on the www.eogn.com web site. The database problem affected those who tried to access a Plus Edition members-only page on the web site.
I must say that I just completed one of the most relaxing weeks of my life. I spent seven days along with approximately 400 other genealogists on board a luxury ship. We sailed along the so-called "Mexican Riviera."
The trip was sponsored by Wholly Genes Software, the company that produces The Master Genealogist software. While many of those on the cruise use The Master Genealogist, I was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few cruise participants who use other genealogy software. In fact, this was not a promotional cruise or limited in any way to users of any particular product. Instead, it was open to anyone with an interest in genealogy.
The next time your village, town, county or other political division is thinking about boosting the local economy, you might suggest the promotion of genealogy.
How much money do genealogists and other "ancestral tourists" contribute to a local economy? One recent study says that Scotland earns millions today from ancestral tourists, and that figure is expected to increase to £300 million ($565 million U.S.) per year within the next five years.
Writing in the Wichita Eagle, Mary Ann Anderson has written about places that you should see in your lifetime. The article is full of references to Kenya's Maasai Mara (a game preserve within the grassy plains of the Great Serengeti region), riding a camel to see the Pyramids at sunrise, paragliding over the Alps, floating down the Nile and experiencing the gastronomical delights of Paris.
This week I will be traveling to St. George, Utah, to attend the Genealogy and Family Heritage Jamboree to be held Friday and Saturday at the Dixie Convention Center. This event is sponsored by My Ancestors Found with a lot of assistance from the Washington County PAF User's Group. Given the long list of presenters and vendors to be at the event, this is shaping up to be one of the larger genealogy conferences this year in North America.
St. George is in the southwest corner of Utah, close to both the Arizona and Nevada borders. It is about a six-hour drive from Salt Lake City. However, I am flying to Las Vegas, which I am told is only a two-hour drive away from the conference center.
The Salt Lake Plaza Hotel has probably been the most popular hotel in the world amongst genealogists. Its location next door to the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City has drawn thousands of guests. On January 11 I wrote about plans to "downsize" the hotel: 70 of the hotel's 226 rooms are being converted to dormitories. The loss of those rooms plus the imminent destruction of another hotel across the street will impact genealogists: rooms will be more difficult to obtain.
Now the Salt Lake Plaza is changing its affiliation and name to become the Plaza Hotel at Temple Square.
Is it just my imagination, or are genealogy cruises becoming more popular these days? Perhaps one good reason is because everyone on these cruises seems to enjoy themselves.
Fly Away Travel has announced their "2006 Genealogy Seminar at Sea" to be held October 29 through November 5, 2006. The seven-day cruise departs Port Canaveral, Florida, sailing to Cocoa Cay (Royal Caribbean's private island), St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands, and St. Maarten.
The seminars will be presented by the following speakers:
Speaking of cruises... It seems this newsletter is full of news about genealogy cruises as we are now at the height of the cruise season. Looking ahead to next year, the 12-day 5th Annual Legacy Genealogy Cruise was announced a few weeks ago but now the special guest lecturer has been announced as well.
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