Tuesday the 4th of September was the longest day ever (well for me anyway). I was up at about 3am, ready for a 6am flight – and my long trip to the US for my latest adventure began.

After after 3 plane flights, bad food, and no sleep, 30 or so hours later, I was at my hotel in Seattle, USA. By this time it’s Tuesday mid-afternoon and a lovely blue sky day, much to my amazement … as my only prior knowledge of Seattle (other than that’s where Nirvana were from), was that ‘it ALWAYS rains’. I must say that I’m very impressed that I was proved wrong.

I made it … finally!

Anyway I was there primarily for Unlock the Past’s Alaska cruise, which I will report on in a later post, but prior to the cruise I had two days in Seattle. So in this post I’m writing about that.

Wednesday 5 September 2018
This was my “free” day. A day to sleep (which I reckon I needed), or a day to tourist. I opted for a bit of both. A quiet morning at the hotel, followed  by some touristing courtesy of the hop-on-hop-off bus in the afternoon – and another perfect weather day. While the bus has 18 stops or so I want to show you just 2 places I saw – the Space Needle and the Chihuly Glass Garden and Exhibition. Both were certainly something worth seeing. While I dd take plenty of photos, I found videos of both, which shows the scale of them far better than my pics do.

one of the many spectacular glass displays

If you want to see more of the Glass Garden, click here for a longer video.

the photo doesn’t do it justice

For more on the Space Needle, check out this link.

After visiting the Chihuly Glass Garden and Space Needle, I popped into the Seattle Public Library, as that’s where I’d be tomorrow for the conference, and hey it’s a library, so I need to visit! I found the genealogy floor, and even the Australian genealogy section (though it was pretty small), still nice to know they had one though. And had a browse around everything.

It’s a very nice library, and would have been good to stay longer and explore their records more. Anyway it wasn’t to be on this trip.

the Seattle Public Library is an interesting looking building

Level 9 – genealogy

how many titles do you recognise?

Thursday 6 September 2018
No sleep in today as the Unlock the Past in Seattle conference day had arrived, and as one of the organisers I had to get there early to help set up things. This was a day-long conference that  was open to anyone (locals and cruisers who were already in Seattle), to come and hear some talks from some speakers who were on the cruise, and others who weren’t.

Held in two streams, one on DNA, the other Irish and General, here’s the talk topics:

Steam 1: DNA
– Using Y-DNA and mtDNA to Explore your Ancestry (Blaine Bettinger)
– Using Autosomal DNA for 18th and 19th Century Mysteries (Blaine Bettinger)
– Challengers with Irish Genetic Genealogy (Maurice Gleeson)
– Using Third-Party Tools to Analyse your Autosomal DNA (Blaine Bettinger)
– Phasing and Mapping your DNA

Blaine Bettinger ready for a day of presentations (Photo: Helen Smith)

the crowd in the DNA stream (Photo: Helen Smith)

Steam 2: Irish/General
– Tracing Your Immigrant Ancestor to Ireland (Maurice Gleeson)
– Genealogy and the Little Ice Age (Wayne Shepheard)
– The Hidden Web: Digging Deeper (Cyndi Ingle)
– Navigating Irish Birth, Marriage and Death Records (Maurice Gleeson)
– Newspapers, Gravestone and Probate: Rice Sources for Irish Research (Maurice Gleeson)

Wayne Shepheard speaker on the Little Ice Age, with Alan Phillips, UTP in Seattle conference organiser

the group listening to Cyndi Ingle’s talk on the Hidden Web (Photo: Alan Phillips)

I chose to sit in on the Irish and General talks, and as always I learnt plenty. Now the trick is to remember it! The Little Ice Age talk was a real thought provoker, and brings in facets I’d never considered. Cyndi’s Hidden Web was great explaining why Google doesn’t find everything, and how can find it yourself. And as for Irish records, there’s always more to learn about them, and Maurice is a great speaker.

All ten talks were livestreamed as well, so allowed others around to log on and listen in at the time. Of those, six of the ten talks were recorded by Legacy Family Tree Webinars and are available for viewing with a subscription. Please note, Blaine’s weren’t recorded, as he advised that his Seattle presentations were already covered by ones he already has on Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Though the titles are different, the content that is covered in the talks is the same, or possibly even more detailed in some areas. You can view all of Blaine’s talks here.

Now I don’t want to give you a sales pitch, but in my option Legacy Family Tree Webinars is a truly fabulous way to extend your genealogy knowledge. They have great talks by well-qualified speakers from all around the world, you can watch and listen to them when you choose. There’s literally hundreds to choose from, and it costs very little. I took out a subscription earlier this year, and my plan is to watch one video a week as a to help boost my genealogy education. If you’re interested in checking it out click here. It’s just US$9.95/month, or US$49.95/year.

Anyway after a great conference, it was off to dinner at the famous Ivar’s Acres of Clams with a bunch of new and old friends for a great catchup after a long day.

it was a great dinner with new and old friends

Stay tuned, as next post we board the ship for Alaska!!

The months are flying by, and there’s now just two months until we set sail on Unlock the Past’s 14th cruise to Alaska.  61 days allowing for the timezone changes.

If you need proof … check my countdown app …

So after flying to Seattle, Washington, USA and having a full-on genealogy seminar the day before … we’ll be boarding on the 7th of September.

Myself and all the other geneacruisers then get 7 fun-filled days of genealogy learning combined with seeing the incredible sights that Alaska has to offer. Don’t you think that’s an awesome combination?

The itinerary takes us from Seattle, to the Inside Passage, to Juneau, Skagway, and Tracy Arm, then to Victoria, Canada before we head back to Seattle.

The ship we’re cruising on is the magnificent Explorer of the Seas from Royal Caribbean. Great ship, and great conference room facilities.

So we have a great ship, great itinerary, and trust me it’ll be a great conference as the range of conference presenters is incredible.

THE PRESENTERS
Susan Brook (USA) – Chasing Your Ancestors
Dick Eastman (USA) – Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
Dr Janet Few (England) – The History Interpreter
Dr Maurice Gleeson (England) – DNA and Family Tree Research
Jan Gow (New Zealand) – Hooked on Genealogy Tours
Caroline Gurney (England) – Historical Research Services
Shauna Hicks (Australia) – Shauna Hicks History Enterprises
Cyndi Ingle (USA) – Cyndi’s List
Eric Kopittke (Australia) – German Family Matters
Rosemary Kopittke (Australia) – Rosemary Kopittke Genealogy
Kae Lewis (USA / New Zealand) – Goldrush Online
Mike Murray (Australia) – Time Trackers
Michelle Patient (New Zealand) – The Patient Genie
Pat Richley-Erickson (USA) – Dear Myrtle
Teri Schaller (USA) – History Speaks, a division of Mile High Transcripts
Helen Smith (Australia) – Dragon Genealogy
Mary Stutters (Australia) – bio here
Ed Thompson (USA) – Evidentia software

Just think of what you can learn from all of these incredible presenters.

THE PROGRAM
The program is largely finalised, and currently there’s 43 talks scheduled. And as with all Unlock the Past cruises they will offer Research Help Zone sessions. These give cruisers the opportunity for one-on-one time with an expert to help you with your brickwall. They’ll also have a panel discussion which this time will be on “DNA ethics and more”, so no doubt there will be lots of interesting comments on that one. And new to this cruise, they are also offering DNA one-on-one sessions. So if you have done a test and want help interpreting the results, or even have questions about testing – be sure to book into one of these. You can download the program from here.

Just some of the topics on offer are:
– Going nearly paperless
– Finding pictorial sources online
– Why transcripts are essential to include in your family records
– ScotlandsPeople
– England’s Poor Law and her misfortunate outcasts
– DNA testing plan
– Hidden secrets in our DNA
– Using the Irish census and census substitutes
– Extracting evidence from photographs
– Using Evidentia to organise your research and analyse your sources
– German maps and gazetteers
– Seven habits of highly effective genealogists
– Is it true? The facts, fun and fiction of family history
– Genealogy treasures inside The Internet Archives
– Cornwall’s people and emigration
– Are you related to royalty?
– Begotten by fornication
– Remember to WWW No, not the world wide web, but the who, where and when
– Use Evernote for genealogy and nearly everything else

The above list are just a few of the wide range of topics on offer. So I believe there’s something that everyone will enjoy and learn from. And remember it’s a cruise. You don’t HAVE to go to everything. If you’re going with family or friends, you’ll have time to go do stuff with them, and you can pick and choose which talks you want to go to.

And no need to feel like you’re missing out, as all talks are scheduled while the ship is at sea, so you still have plenty of time to go ashore and see the sights along the way.

So come and join me and a heap of others who have already booked for this awesome cruise, or just follow along online (I’ll blog about it as I always do) on what will be a trip of a lifetime.

For more info about the Unlock the Past Alaska cruise, visit their website here.

USEFUL LINKS: 
If you’re new to genealogy cruising, here’s a list of 13 tips for first time geneacruisers. I do need to update this list, but most of it is still relevant. Helen V. Smith has written tips for those interested in making the most of the Research Help Zone. And if you needed a reason (or two, or more) to go on an Unlock the Past genealogy cruise… here’s 20 reasons

MORE GENEALOGY CRUISES:
If Alaska isn’t your cup of tea, but Singapore, the Mediterranean, or an Australian cruise is, check out Unlock the Past  cruises 15th, 16th and 17th cruises.

I’ll admit it. I’m a genealogy cruise fan (aka geneacruiser).

I’ve been on 5 already with Unlock the Past cruises, and have cruised around Australia, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Scandinavia and the Baltic, and the UK. Not only have I seen some amazing places along the way, I’ve also learnt so much from the speakers onboard, and made many new friends as well. All in all, they are a whole lot of fun.

Anyway this year I’m off to Alaska on what is Unlock the Past’s 14th cruise. And I’m just a little bit excited? Can you tell? I’ve even got a countdown app on my phone … and it tells me that as of today, there’s just 8 months to go.

So what’s a genealogy cruise? Or more to the point I should say what’s an Unlock the Past genealogy cruise? Well, essentially it’s a genealogy conference on board a cruise ship.

So just like a regular cruise you get your comfy room, meals included, entertainment onboard, and you get to sightsee along the way, but with a genealogy cruise, during the seas days you can attend a genealogy conference onboard, which sounds perfect to me.

They have a whole schedule of talks planned, and you simply pick and choose any you’re interested in, and you can read, swim (ok, maybe not swim on a Winter-time Alaska cruise), chitchat over coffee with friends or whatever else the rest of the time. No pressure. And if you are travelling with non-genie family or friends, there is plenty of ships activities that can keep them amused while you’re busy conferencing with many of the world’s best.

So the details … 

WHEN: 7-14 September 2018

ITINERARY: Seattle, USA > Inside Passage, Canada > Juneau, USA > Skagway, USA > Tracy Arm, USA > Victoria, Canada > Seattle, USA

SHIP: Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas 

COST: from AU$1860 (approx US$1460, GB£1100) and includes all onboard accommodation, standard meals, taxes, gratuities and conference cost.

PRESENTERS:
Dick Eastman (USA),
Dr Janet Few (England)
Jan Gow (New Zealand)
Caroline Gurney (England)
Shauna Hicks (Australia)
Cyndi Ingle (USA)
Eric Kopittke (Australia)
Rosemary Kopittke (Australia)
Kae Lewis (USA / New Zealand)
Mike Murray (Australia)
Mile High Transcripts (USA)
Michelle Patient (New Zealand)
Chris Paton (Scotland)
Pat Richley-Erickson (aka Dear Myrtle) (USA)
Helen Smith (Australia)
Mary Stutters (Australia)
Ed Thompson (from Evidentia software) (USA)

Just think of what you can learn from all of these incredible presenters.

The program hasn’t been finalised yet, but there is likely to be about 45 presentations, which will be held in 2-3 streams. And as with all Unlock the Past cruises, they will offer the Research Help Zone sessions, which give cruisers the opportunity for one-on-one help from experts to help you with your brickwall.

Some come and join me and a bunch of others who have already booked for this awesome cruise, on what will be a trip of a lifetime.

For more about the Unlock the Past Alaska cruise, visit:

https://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/2018cruisealaska/

What’s better than a cruise? A genealogy cruise of course. Well, it is in my opinion anyway, and I’m already looking forward to my next one … Alaska.

In September 2018 (7 September 2018 to be exact), Unlock the Past’s Alaska cruise will leave from the docks at Seattle, USA, and head up the coast for a 7 day cruise to Alaska and back.

I have seen some amazing places on previous cruises, but I’ve not been to Alaska. But everyone who has, tells me it is absolutely incredible, so I’m looking forward to it. But then combine the amazing scenery with a phenomenal ship that has everything catered for, and a genealogy conference with world-class speakers … what’s not to love?

So yes, I’m counting down!

WHEN: 7-14 September 2018

ITINERARY: Seattle, USA > Inside Passage, Canada > Juneau, USA > Skagway, USA > Tracy Arm, USA > Victoria, Canada > Seattle, USA

SHIP: Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas 

COST: from AU$1471 (approx US$1100, GB£870) and includes all onboard accommodation, standard meals, taxes, gratuities and conference cost.

PRESENTERS:
Chris Paton (Scotland)
Dick Eastman (USA),
Dr Janet Few (England)
Jan Gow (New Zealand)
Caroline Gurney (England)
Shauna Hicks (Australia)
Cyndi Ingle (USA)
Eric Kopittke (Australia)
Rosemary Kopittke (Australia)
Mike Murray (Australia)
Mile High Transcripts (USA)
Michelle Patient (New Zealand)
Pat Richley-Erickson (aka Dear Myrtle) (USA)
Helen Smith (Australia)
… and more still the be announced!

So apart from the awesome group of speakers, and meeting with a great bunch of other genealogists, there are still further benefits of genealogy cruising:
– there are no meals to prepare (not even mentioning the incredible buffets on offer)
– no housekeeping (your room is tidied everyday by cruise staff)
– and you can get up at whatever time you wish (true!!)

You can also choose whatever mix of genealogy, relaxing or all the luxuries and entertainment that is offered on one of the biggest cruise ships in the world. And it is the perfect event for your non-genealogy partner to join you.

I can highly recommend genealogy cruising. It really is the best of both worlds. You get to visit amazing places, while enjoying a genealogy conference. You can learn from so many of the best, and make a bunch of new friends as well.

Come and join me, I guarantee you’ll have a ball.

For more information, pricing and booking, please visit the UTP cruise website.

https://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/2018cruisealaska/

And keep up to date with the latest UTP cruise news by following their Facebook page.