20 March 2013

What Would You Do With a Genealogy Time Machine?

Source: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090502052215/timemachine/images/4/45/The_Time_Machine.jpg

Lorine McGinnis Schulze (The Olive Tree Genealogy) posted a piece titled What Would You Do With a Genealogy Time Machine?  Do read her post (and the conditions for using the time machine) as well as the provided comments.

Though it is tempting to try and solve a brick wall (of which there are many), I think that since my family has always been a bit geographically dispersed and small, I would personally focus more on recent generations.  Additionally, I would rather see a bunch of little events and snippets of life than spend too much time with one person or family.  After all, I only have 24 hours!

That said, my 24 hours might look like this ... obviously, I’d have to be more specific if I ever did get access to a time machine and this is good enough for my hypothetical plan!

2 hrs   
Oldham (UK) -- see my mom perform in a play as a teen (I’ve only seen newspaper clippings)
2 hrs   
Oldham (UK) -- see my mom play piano (I’ve only heard that she was excellent)
2 hrs
Salem MA – see my dad “win” the race where the photographer captured his glory
2 hrs
Salem MA -- see my grandmother, grandfather and father when he was about 2 (his father died soon after and it would be nice to meet my grandfather and also see my grandmother when she was happy) (my father was an only son of an only son of an only son)
2 hrs
Somewhere along the Polish border – see my paternal great grandfather during one of the several attempts he made to leave the country before he was successful
2 hrs
Desno or Wola Pietrusza (Poland) – visit one of the ancestral towns of my Galician ancestors, just before they emigrated to the US
2 hrs
Salem MA –spent some time with my paternal great grandmother before she died in the influenza epidemic of 1918
2 hrs
Ylistaro (Finland) – visit the Kujanpaa farm before my other paternal great grandfather fell through the ice
2 hrs
Chadderton (UK) – visit the coal mine where a distant relative worked (I’d have to look up the details for this one first)
2 hrs
Hollinwood (UK) – spend some time with the Taylors and Wolfendens and their hatting business
2 hrs
Somewhere in the Atlantic, c. 1900-1910 – travel with either a Kujanpaa or Rajala or Blom from Finland or a Barna or Malecki from Galicia
2 hrs
UK – attend one of the Nelson family reunions, when the patriarch George Nelson was alive and ask that man about his father (okay – so, I put one brick wall item in my list )

And, what would you do if you had a Genealogy Time Machine?





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1 comment:

  1. snippets between 1895 and 1905 as well as between Cleveland and Pittsburgh to visit with my great grandparents. Maternal immigrants from Germany; paternal Civil War Veteran with no children (per pension filings).

    ReplyDelete