Aug 202014
 

Tonight was the last night of the 5th Unlock the Past cruise. 

Just the final presentation by Eileen  Ó Dúill and a cracker it was. “Mrs Fancy Tart is coming to tea: making sense of family stories” 

We all have family stories that seem OK but when you start researching them things don’t quite stack up and there are a variety of reasons for this and perhaps the one below is the most common.
 

We interpret or put filters on things according to our own knowledge, experience, beliefs and culture.

We do have to be aware of this when we are researching our ancestors as how things are done today can be intrinsically different to how our ancestors would do something, this can be as simple as the fact married women hold jobs now and yet this is really a comparatively recent occurrence.

The expectation that all members of a family contributed to its income, including the six year old is not part of our modern thinking but an agricultural family living in England would have had the six year old helping as he could, whether it was gleaning kindling or scaring off crows.

Eileen gave us an entertaining yet thought provoking talk for our last presentation.

Then it was time for the prize draw!

Lisa Louise Cook helped draw the prizes. 

Including a prize donated by Lisa of a year Premium membership to her podcast which was won by Paul Blake! 


 There were a number of prizes and the above is a group photo of most of the winners



The presenter on the 5th Unlock the Past Cruise

L-R: Mike Murray, Lesley Silvester, Lisa Louise Cooke, Rosemary Kopittke (behind), Helen Smith, Marie Dougan, Sean Ó Dúill, Eileen Ó Dúill, Paul Blake.

Missing from the above photo is Jackie Depelle who is shown below in her finery

Then we adjourned to the deck for a group photo. Getting a group together for the photo is always an interesting exercise and even with all our efforts not everyone managed to be in the photo but the majority were present.


Marco Polo crew who helped with the 5th Unlock the Past Cruise L-R: Tony, Julie, Katie, Marco 


This cruise was the smoothest behind the scenes conference experience of the five I have done so far and it is due in a major part to Julie Thompson and her team. Nothing was too much trouble for them and it definitely made our lives easier. I’d love to kidnap them and have them as part of the team on every cruise!

The other people who make the cruise a pleasure are the Unlock the Past conference attendees who came, heard the presentations, interacted in the Research Help Zones and shared their experiences with each other and us. The interactions, networking and genealogical sharing of information is a large part of the fun to be had as you know the person you are talking to understands your own genealogy addiction. No rolled eyes or trying to sidle away in boredom when you start talking about a new record source you have found and they get excited when you talk about demolishing that brick wall!

After the group photo we headed back inside for a cocktail party get-together as our final function. Thanks Julie for organising this, it capped the cruise perfectly! So I will leave you with some images of us enjoying ourselves at this function. Until the next cruise out of Sydney in October which unfortunately for me I am not attending but I will be on the one after that which is out of Perth in January 2015 going to Albany the leaving point for the first contingent of ANZACs. Appropriate in 2015 the 100 year commemoration of Gallipoli.

Then the next after that will be the Baltic cruise in July 2015 so just a little while to wait!

The esteemed Julie relaxing and chatting at the party.

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