f11: gnome-terminal starts up in /

[Joe Smith]

I have a gnome-terminal instance started with my session; the shell it 
starts is in my home directory. If I start new terminal windows from 
that one, or if I start 'gnome-terminal' from a command line, they start 
in ~.

But the gnome-terminals I start from the menu, or from a panel launcher, 
come up with the shell in the system root: /.

This is only the case for my normal user account; if I login as a 
separate 'testing' user, the terminals there are all fine.

Any ideas what I may have broken, or what I need to tweak to get all the 
terminals to start in ~?

<Joe