Question of the Week: If you could time travel, where/when would you go? [closed]

Question

If you could time travel, where or when would you go?

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Answer 1

How does one choose?

I always thought to be in the Book Depository, then on the grassy knoll, then in the Warren Commision hearings.

But how to not want to actually see a dinosaur, or a Wooly Mammoth, or witness the first step on the moon, or a Neanderthal/homo sapiens interaction, or... I could go on forever, and bore you to death.

If I could interact with them, I'd like to interview my three brick walls in my ancestry (one has been developed with possible DNA links, but I consider this line to also be only a possibility.)  Find out if the rumors are true, find out what is the truth.  Discover what their lives really were!

Comments

Yes I would love to know who arranged for the assassination of JFK as well.

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Whoever arranged it went to a lot of trouble to convince me (and a few million others) it was Lee Harvey Oswald. They even proved it. The moon landing is much more interesting; besides, I've never been to Hollywood.

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Hi Cousin,

But, but, but             At the 1969 Boy Scout Jamboree, they showed the moon landing on a giant screen- it had to be real.  I can understand how maybe someone who only got to watch on their 21" RCA Black & White TV might have questions...

Then they had Up With People sing us inspirational songs and sent us off in the dark to find our camps and be true believers (at least for the night...)

If I peaked your interest, shortest route is 9th cousin, 1x removed, at least how WT has it now...

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The 9x1 is usually the first thing I check. I think Abe said it best when it came to foolin' the people. That was using the Pony Express-before big screens, color TV or the internet; or was it Mark Twain that said a man that doesn't read is no better off than a man who can't. My favorite Professor said to always question why you believe what you choose to believe. I'm so confused! By the way, did they ever rescue those seven castaways from the 60's.

Answer 2

I would travel back to 1950 when I was 5, and I would do my best to change my mother’s life. I would talk her into not breaking her engagement to William Martin. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Martin-78696

I have been able to find him with the 1950 census, and I have been able to find out what a wonderful man he was, and how he was a non smoker and very much into living a healthy life style. I feel her heavy smoking lead to her cancer, and I feel having more children would have been a good life for her. I would try to give my mother a good life. 

Also, I would find out more about my great aunt Nora. 

Answer 3

I've just be browsing through my Star Trek books, and i would rather like to travel to the future to see if our world can actually settle down to produce a Star Trek like civilization.

But I'm guessing we can only travel backwards and not forwards. There are so many people in history that I want to meet and talk to. These are my top 5 people!!

Leonardo da Vinci

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vinci-33

Marco Polo

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Polo-28

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clemens-1

Eleanor of Provence and her sisters

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Provence-162

And Hypatia - but there is no profile for her - she is rather too far back to find sources for.

I'm not terribly bothered by speaking to any of my ancestors.- except for the Courtenay family. According to Wikitree, I am descended from them.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Courtenay-491

Comments

I too hope for a Star Trek like future.

Answer 4

Well, first thought is always the best answer.  I would go to my home town before 1950 and meet my Welsh grandfather who immigrated to the US in the early 1900's and died before I was born.  He worked in granite quarries all over the northeast.  My brother looks like him.

Answer 5

So many parts of history I'd love to experience first hand. However, from a genealogical persepctive I'd travel to England in 1830, so i could interview in person my three key brickwall ancestors! They all died before the 1851 census so I have no record of their birth places, parents etc

Answer 6

I would ravel back to 1938 and meet my father who died from cancer.  My mother was left a widow with four children under the age of five and tells stories of a wonderful husband and father that I can only imagine would have provided a much easier life for us if he had lived.  I found a letter his sister sent just after I was born predicting my father "had to buy a much bigger hat after the birth of his daughter" who joined two brothers. Would I have been "Daddy's little girl" later in life?  I have no memories of him, I was three months short of turning two.

Answer 7

I would go back to about 1790 in south Staffordshire England and find William Jones my 4 x GGF and insist he tell me his wife Sarah’s maiden name!

Answer 8

Using the Tardis, I would travel to San Pietro a Maida, Italy around 1910 and talk to the townspeople. The Tardis can translate any language so a language barrier would be non existent. I would then go to the town hall and the documents there would be translated as well.

Wouldn't be using the delorean, that's for sure. The reentry is a bit....dodgy.

After that, I would like to go to Haverhill, Mass at various points in time. I can't risk interacting with anyone because it might interfere with my own timeline. But, I would totally get some candid shots of various ancestors I don't have pictures of.

Then I'd go visit my grandfather, Marco as I have no memories of him since he died when I was four.

Comments

I was going to say Doctor Who or Coronation Street.  That would be great!

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"I would travel to San Pietro a Maida" I expected this. But, not to Scotland to meet your Ross ancestors?!? 

Answer 9

Easy peasy. 1830 or 40. I would pop in on my Brick wall and visit her and her unknown parents and siblings. [[Maupin-580|Hanasak (Maupin) Welch (abt.1824-1881)]].

Answer 10

I would travel to Washington County Marylannd and Harpers Ferry Virginia at the beginning of the 19th century to talk with my Myers, Hoffmaster, Stoner and Peacher ancestors to learn about their ancestors and to understand their lives at that period.

I would want to make a second visit to County Antriim in Ireland also at the beginning of the 19th century to meet and talk with my Hetherington and  Adrain ancestors,

So many questions to ask and a very strong desire to understand their daily lives and  the world as it was for them at that time.

Answer 11

I would go back to Illinois in 1973. That was the last year all of my parents, grandparents, and the few great grandparents that I remember, were all still alive. There would also be a lot of relatives who I've discovered while doing my genealogy work, and I'd do my darndest to meet as many as I could. 

Answer 12

Not to interfere with anyone else's life, I would travel back to 1967 and tell my 10-year-old self to start saving for the future. All lunch money, all allowances, all birthday money- everything. WE'RE GOING TO WOODSTOCK!!!!

Answer 13

I would go back to the end of August 1873 and drop in on my 3xgreat grandfather’s funeral. I could just wander up the road to his house (on the same block as our new library) or the other way to the cemetery. I would learn about the early establishment from 1842 of the town where I live, hear about the sea voyage and their lives in England, meet my 2xgreat grandparents and decide what they were really like as people. Meeting the whole extended family would be amazing.

Answer 14

I'd go back to September 30, 1754, in Philadelphia and track down my first paternal immigrant ancestor, Philipp Stang, and ask him where he came from and what the names of his parents and his grandparents were.  We've been trying to run him down for four generations now.

Answer 15

Hmm, no one's going back to save the 1890 US Census from the big burn?

Comments

We can only observe history, can't change it, so all the time travel books & movies i have seen tell me.

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Marty McFly ring any bells! A little more interference and boom, he's calling Biff dad.

Answer 16

As much as I would love to spend some time with ancestors I have never met, I would like to go back to 1992 when my late husband and I first met, so we could have another 25 amazing years together. 

Answer 17

Well, one on my time-travel bucket list is the HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin's trip around the world! My dissertation was based on Darwin's work Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (not that man isn't an animal).

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hms-beagle-darwins-trip-around-world

Comments

I'd love to meet our cousins Loammi https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Baldwin-6646 and Benjamin https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Thompson-9085.  I share interests in all things mechanical and horticultural with them both, Cousin Carol.

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Hi Mark, after my trek with Darwin, I will time-travel with you to chat with cousins Loammi and Benjamin to hear of their boyhood exploits, their conversations at the start of the Revolutionary War, then travel between the colonies, England and Germany to follow their paths! Good choices, cousin Mark!

BTW...did I tell you that I got a photo of the statue of Cousin Benjamin that was erected in Munich in his honor? There is a replicat on the grounds of the Woburn Library. Benjamin Thompson was quite the hero in Bavaria. He developed a wholesome soup that became the fare for the poor in Munich. I was at the beer garden and also discovered the 'Rumford House' on the grounds and took photos. It is now used as a nursery school. I will have to upload these to his profile one of these fine days.

Answer 18

Anytime, Anywhere, for a change of scenery. Maybe my 2nd Great Grandfather in England before he was transported to Australia.

Answer 19

Well, I have a "brick wall" trip I could make, to find out what became of the three emigrated sisters of my great grandfather Gustav Lindström.

Brita Katrina Lindström emigrated in 1875; a remark in a Swedish record from 1879 states that she married Over There - but gives no married name.

Anna Margareta Lindström emigrated in 1881 and sent money back home to her orphaned siblings from Chicago in 1882.

Kristina Ulrika Lindström emigrated in 1882.

I have had no luck finding out if they married, and if so what their married name would be.

I should think that if I could visit the baptism of my granny Ingeborg in Skutskär in 1891, her father would have some useful news about his sisters.

Answer 20

To the BIG BANG.  We can already detect rare earth metals from when it occurred.