Excellent speakers have been lined up for the "Cloud Family Gathering" in Knoxville, TN, over the weekend of 16-18 July. These include noted author and speaker Dr. George Sweitzer, professional genealogist and CFA Historian Jan Cloud, storyteller Jimmy Claborn, and Assoc. Director of the East Tennessee Historical Society Cherel Henderson. This national meeting of various branches of numerous Cloud families represents the greatest concentration of knowledge of Cloud history and genealogy to be found anywhere. These national meetings are held in even-numbered years and are supplemented by regional meetings (four last year) in odd-numbered years. The Saturday schedule includes a luncheon and the annual 10:00 a.m. meeting of the Cloud Family Association, during which officers for the 2004-2006 term and several other Board members will be elected and the location of the 2006 meeting will be decided. The Sunday schedule includes a trip to Hawkins County and a catered picnic lunch on the banks of Cloud's Creek. An advanced party of Cloud researchers will arrive in Knoxville on Tuesday (7/13/04) and work under the guidance of Historian Jan Cloud to "deCloud" the historical records archived there. Others are invited to join in for either the group effort or pursuit of clues related to individual challenges. Findings will be summarized on Saturday and published in subsequent Cloud Family Journal issues. This "Smokie Mountains" area offers many reasons to consider it for a vacation trip with the added benefit of attending the Cloud Family Gathering. Dr. Ray Shirley, a CFA VP, is the host this year. Over the past 27 years these national meetings have been held in PA, NC, GA, AL, LA, TX, AR, KS, and W. TN. OK and TX are current candidates for 2006. Regional meetings have been held in some of these same states and also in CA. For more information, see: http://mykindred.com/cloud/2004/ or http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cloud/2004/ <http://homepages.rootsweb.com/%7Ecloud/2004/> Please consider putting this on your calendar. Cecil Stokes (son of Merle Cloud Stokes) President, The Cloud Family Association > >

FYI As of today, there are 113 subscribers to CLOUD-L and 30 subscribers to CLOUD-D also, I changed the "prepend" to the subject line to just be "CLOUD" and not "CLOUD-L" Tom Cloud