8th Unlock the Past Cruise: Day 13 At Sea

The sightseeing part of the cruise was over, but the cruise itself wasn’t, and Day 13, Thursday 23 July 2015 was a special day. No not because it was the 13th day of the cruise. And no not because it was another sea day, but rather it was the third (of three) Formal Dinner Nights on this cruise, and also there was a special lunch put on for our group only in the Tuscan Grill, which is one of the “special” restaurants onboard. A tidbit about the number 13, this ship has no deck 13. It simply goes from 12 to 14. I don’t know if that normal for all ships, but it certainly is for this one.

Anywa being a sea day, there was a full day of conferencing scheduled. Eleven talks to be exact. I made it to seven of them. And every one of them was fascinating and I made copious amounts of notes, as I do tend to remember more if I write things as I go, rather than just read the handouts later.
– 1914: Tracing you British WW1 solider – Paul Milner
– Maintaining an organised computer – Cyndi Ingle
– The ones that got away: tracing (UK) migrant ancestors – Janet Few
– Discover English census records – Paul Milner
– The Internet: lower your expectations to raise your research potential – Cyndi Ingle
– Making genealogical research time – Helen Smith
– Down and out in Scotland – Chris Paton

Cyndi’s organising talk was one that I wanted to make mention of, because she knows that EVERYONE has scans and digital photos that are numbered D128998 or SCAN0010 or similar – which means absolutely nothing, and means you most likely won’t be able to find it when needed. Certainly not by searching for it anyway. So apart from labelling files appropriately such as – surname, then the person/couple; or start with locality, family/group/topic; or any other number of variants … the key is to be consistent. Label GEDCOM files that you make or receive to be something useful by including the name and date of the person you got it from. The same goes for the scans.

You need to have a virtual filing system for your photos, documents, Word files, PDF files, GEDCOMs, favourites and bookmarks, emails and Excel files. Ideally you duplicate your filing system as much as you can – on your your computer, on the cloud, and in emails, even your research workbook should be organised the same way. Metadata for your scans and images was also mentioned, and how this is useful, except that some sites to strip it out (like Facebook) so if you’ve gone to the trouble of writing in the details of eveyone in a big group to share with others on Facebook, it will be gone. But if you email it to someone, all those details stay.

It was an eye-opener. Not that I don’t file my photos, scans and records. I do. But I find it really interesting to see how others do it – which often can be something that you can adapt to suit your needs.

Lunch for most of the Unlock the Past cruisers was at the Tuscan Grill, which is a fancy place (in reality a little too fancy for me), however I did go, but didn’t stay. Somewhere between getting the champagne on arrival and looking at the menu and not recognising anything I decided the buffet was more my style, so I headed upstairs, and found a number of other UTP cruisers and had lunch with them. But those that did go (and stay) for the Tuscan Grill lunch, said it was lovely.

Again, formal is not my thing, and I’d avoided going to the first two – but my roommate Helen, said we should make an effort, so we got a glammed up (as much as we do) – even had some photos taken before dinner, and enjoyed a lovely dinner with out table mates: Cyndi Ingle, her son Evan, and her mum Janice, as well as Paul Milner and his wife Carol. Good conversations, good friends, good food. It was a lovely evening.

After the last talk of the day which was Chris’ Down and out in Scotland the authors of any Unlock the Past guide books were asked to stay back, as there was a group being organised. This was done, and the another with both Alan Phillips (boss of Unlock the Past) and Tony Beardshaw (head of My Heritage in England who makes and sells the UTP guide books in the UK, and who was selling them onboard).

Day 14 is next, and it is a sad day as it’s our last day …