SPEAKER HIGHLIGHTS

NEW ENGLAND CONNECTions 2007 has an exciting list of speakers planned. More than 45 speakers will participate in the Hartford conference and will discuss a wide range of topics in tracks devoted to New England Research, Ethnic Genealogy, Technology, Skills and Methodology, Federal Records at the National Archives, Records and Sources, Writing and Documents, and Genealogical Techniques.

Some speaker highlights are:

Beau Sharbrough will be the keynote speaker for the opening session on Thursday afternoon. Beau will speak on "Genealogy in 2020 - A Report From The Future". In 2020, you won't use your web browser to look up your pedigree charts, linked to all the sources already. That will be ancient history. In 2020, you'll attend a family reunion and have dinner with the animated holograms of your ancestors. Don't leave your ancestors asking you "How did you get so much of my life wrong?"

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak will be speaking at Friday's Luncheon on "Cases That Made My Brain Hurt". How could brothers also be uncle and nephew? How could a soldier killed in Korea be alive 55 years later? How could the 1853 death of a toddler in Scotland help solve a Civil War history-mystery? Come and hear!

For the dinner banquet on Friday evening Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG will be giving an entertaining lecture entitled "Pat Tells All: Who Did What For Whom". Come learn the hidden secrets of genealogical successes.

Marcia Melnyk will be speaking at Saturday's Luncheon on "It's A Small World After All: Genealogy in the Global Perspective". Utilizing the Internet has become an everyday practice for many of today's researchers. Are you using the Internet to its best advantage? What might you be missing? Learn some of the ways to make information come to you, find relatives, and otherwise broaden your research to encompass the world.

For the dinner banquet on Saturday evening, Henry Z. "Hank" Jones, Jr., FASG will sharing his genealogical experiences by speaking on "How Psychic Roots Became An Unsolved Mystery". Hank will share his adventures behind the NBC-TV dramatization of his ground-breaking bestseller (now in it's 6th printing) and will relate even more amazing serendipitous experiences contributed by genealogists worldwide for his new sequel More Psychic Roots.