Wholly Genes Cruise 2007- The Speakers

Here is the group photo of all the speakers featured at the Wholly Genes 2007 Cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess. Kudos to the staff aboard the ship for accomadating all of us and our technology. Just to let you know how wonderful Princess Staff is--the last port of call at Princess Cays in the Bahamas was canceled due to the ravages of Hurricane Noel. Princess was left with the hefty responsibility of feeding and entertaining about 2500 hundred vacationing souls. The approx. 400 hundred of us 'dye hard' genealogy buffs wanted more lectures--can't get enough of our speakers. Princess made available the theatre for about 2.45 hours of time. A side bonus--Bob Velke and Cyndi Howells also pulled off a private viewing of the 1966 Disney film "Blackbeards Ghost" featuring Hank Jones (one of the speakers). Hank gave us an insiders talk and we harrassed him everytime he made an appearance in the film...which was quite often.

Robert Charles Anderson is very beloved by all of us with Early New England ancestors. He is the editor of The Great Migration project sponsored by New England History Genealogy Society in Boston. He gave a talk on writing stories about our ancestors. My fifteen minute one-on-one gave me some hints and resources to write my own family hisotry. Thanks Bob.



John Grenham is a native of Ireland and the world expert on Irish Genealogy...which can be a real can of worms. Dick and I had a 15 min. one-on-one session and he helped us set up a research strategy for a trip to Ireland next year. Dick has the Ulster-Scot immigrants and I have genuine mud hut Irish ancestors in County Cork, Limerick, and Clare.




Sandra Hewlett
Is another speaker I did not get to meet personally. What a loss for me. Her talk on "Internet Resources for Your British Reasearch" was most excellent. She gave Dick some good ideas for going around his brick walls.



Here is Barbara, a Tech support person, but she now does the digital book thing. She worked herself to death at the conference along with Bob Velke, his wife Kathy and




Phil DiSilva.

Below is Kent Riggins and his wife. Kent does writes the charting software in the program The Master Genealogist.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak (The first Smolenyak is her maiden name the second Smolenyak is her married name--wierd thing, they did the DNA and they are not related at all) is a very charming lady. I did not get to interact with her but for a few brief moments. Her husband is the 'Wind Beneath Her Wings.' Check out her blog. She recorded the very first "Genealogy Wave."

Cyndi Howells is famous for her Cyndi's List on the Internet. She makes Internet Genealogy do-able. I did not get to spend any quality time with her. Would have loved too. But she is a genealogy hero to so many I did not have time to chat on this trip. Next time Cyndi!

Lee Hoffman wrote the user's book for The Master Genealogist. His home page is short on graphics but packed with lots of users tools, tips, stuff about himself, his wife and the house he built.

Dick Eastman is the author of Eastman's Online Newletter. I learned from him that a genealogist in today's world needs to back up our data, images, videos, music in digital format and save it on a disc, flash drive, online, on the hard drive, on the laptop, desktop, my sons hard drive, and even on line storage facilities. His newsletter is absorbing. There is the free version with a sense of his opinions and then the paid version with the whole scoop.



I've already mention Tony Burroughs. I found out during the course of the week the fellow is a fantastic photographer in addition to a knowledgable and entertaining speaker.

Here is Hank Jones and his wife. Hank is on my pedistal of genealogy heros. Why? Because he did all of my Palatine research for me and published it! He has three generations of the Shaffer family in his books and even found them in the small town of Ralsberg, Germany. How wonderful is that. If you check out his web site you will see that he is also a movie star. He was featured in the movier Blackbeard's Ghost-a Disney flick that is well worth owning and viewing with the grandkids over and over. Thanks Hank for your behind the scenes stories.


John Titford is a multi-talented fellow with a most lovely (and talented) wife. I took this video at the cocktail party on the last night. John sang many songs that our ancestors would have sung through the centuries. What a treat to hear the old ballads. But the best of all was the "Mystery Band". Here is our own Wholly Genes Band in their first ever performance before the public.



"The Wholly Genes Band " Debut aboard the Caribbean Princess 3 Nov 2007