General Chat

Hi, strange question I know, but would you use your time machine to cheat and fill in all the missing blanks or would you use it just so you could meet ur ancestors? or would you prefer to carry out on as we are and not use the machine at all? I would like to think that I would use mine just so I could meet my ancestors, but saying I would probably end up cheating aswell!

Karen as i often go down roads where some of hubby's rellies lived and a few of mine i find my self wondering how different it would've been. I've seen pictures but it's not the same is it, I'd love to know how they were, what they felt fate had dealt them. If i went back besides the above there's 3 times i'd go to.. 1969 Surrey to when when i was conceived, to find out about my dad,mum says she has told me everthing but i don't have enough info to trace my dad. 1913 Northern Ireland when my grandad was born. Grandad would've gladly given me all the info i req'd but as he passed away in 1981, when I was 13 long before the gene bug ever bit, it's an impossiblity 1898 Kent When my Gt grandad was born as he is the only other illegitmate in the family I'd love to know who the dad is and if he was born in the workhouse because she wasn't married. Did he family cast her out as she had brought shame on the family??? this is from my tree alone i daresay there's other little niggle on hubby's ttree but HEY time travelling would be tiring and I must get my priorities right LOL Shelli xxxx

Hi Karen,i certainly would i have a few mysteries in my tree so just to fined out what was going on would be good. they probabley would not be as exciting as my mind conjures up.So grandad if your listening up there,give us a clue.Great idea of yours, when you have managed to make one bags i have first go.Good hunting Jan

I would definitely go back to Kippax in 1881, go to the Old Tree Inn , order a nice foaming pint of beer or two and chat up the young barmaid. It was my Great Grandma. Bob

I would use it to meet "James", "John" and "William", my three brick walls. Probably "Susannah" too (James' wife), since she was fairly young when she died and I didn't even know of her early death or her husband's remarriage until a couple of years ago. I have so much information about the above people (unfortunately not about their parents, though!!!) and would like to actually meet them. A distant relative kindly sent my a copy of a drawing of our ancestor who was in a trade journal or something. I have the picture filed and don't remember the date, but it is something like 1800 or 1750 -- which is truly a keepsake. However, it doesn't mean as much to me because I didn't research that side, and I didn't put my heart and soul into researching. How I wish I could see what the above people looked like!

Ooh I don't think I would like to meet my ancestors directly, after all, you choose your friends, not your rellies! Wouldn't it be terrible if you met them and found out they were really awful!!! Having said that, I'd like to meet my lovely eccentric gran again and ask her if she knew her 'husband' was already married. Like Bob, I would go back to a pub or two where the relllies could be observed before meeting them. The Bricklayers Arms in Romsey (now a private house) once owned by a Gx6 grandfather. I'd like to go to his funeral - 2000 people attended. This was after they had knocked out the wall under his bedroom window and slid the coffin down the wall. (he was a big lad, the house had a small stairwell!) Also like to go to the White Horse in Orford in 1830 when it was owned by a Gx4 grandfather.

I would go back!! I'd like to meet my folks - and I have SO many questions for them!! One of the places on my list is Lance Cove, Bell island - hope to see it in the 21st century, but this poem was written by someone who was born there just 2 years before great great grandma Harriet Hiscock - in fact probably knew her - the poem brings the place alive!! http://www(.)angelfire(.)com/hi3/ebsary/Belinda(.)html

I too have to be honest and say I would use it. To find out the secrets our families have kept, the lives they led, the loves they lost and found, their ambitions and dreams. 1873 - who was Henry Thomas Rivers father and mother. He lived with her and her 2 sisters and they never told him. How did he find out his fathers name and call himself this ? as he was named Robert Henry Jacobs. 1820 - King George iv was he really my husbands 7XGRT Granddad ( illegitimate of course ) according to documents we have from 1877. 1690 - to learn the truth about Thomas Playford if he really was placed on a door step pinned with a note to him with said name. No parish records go beyond his marriage or birth of his children. 1480 - to learn what it must have been like for a Yeoman farmer, wife and SEVENTEEN children ( all living!!!!) 1066 - to be a fly on the wall and see my grandmothers ancestors ( anglo saxons ) invade my grandfathers ancestors village ( Sedlescombe) and then 100's of years later ( 1939) their descendants ( my grandparents ) find each other, fall in love and marry : ) The more I write the more I think ........... oh yes and this one and why that and so on and so on so I could be here all day. Much Happiness Debi ( off in her time machine : )

If I had the chance to go back in a time machine I would. I'd try to find out about my Great Grandfather Joseph Owen Whalley. He has eluded me for long enough now. I'd like to meet most of my ancestors, and the period that they lived and how they lived. I wonder how long it will be before someone makes a time machine? Gem

I think mine would have to be a travelling time machine First of all I would like to go to India to find my elusive Irish rellies serving in the British army then perhaps to Ireland to see where they came from Then I would go to the channel slands to visit my ancestors there after which I would have to go to Normandy and Brittany because they are descended from French Hugenots Then on my husbands side to a little village between Norway and Sweden where his Viking ancestors came from And last but not least I would like to meet my GT Gtt grandfather Jonathon and ask him why did he run off with the family money and what did he do with it Bfren

I think it's understandable to think of our ancestors in nothing less than endearing terms but it's inevitable that some ancestors would fail to meet up to our expectations if we knew what they were actually like. One of my great great uncles looks a fairly jolly sort of bloke (which he may have been for all I know) in one photo I have but stories passed down from relatives old enough to have actually known him, reported him to be a guy who liked to run over small animals in his motor car for fun. Genealogy may be about tracing family lines and so on but it helps incredibly to have a sense of history and what was going on (e.g. wars, etc..) during a particular period of time. Hence, if such a thing as a time machine did exist, I wouldn't hesitate to use it although I can't imagine my ancestors being a co-operative bunch with regards helping me in my research. I think I would have to do what they did in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and take some of them back with me to the present day in order to help fill the gaps in my knowledge, lol! :-)))

yes i would to ask my grandad why he did not marry my gran what his date of birth was and were he was born i could then eliminate one of my brick walls ,also id like to ask my dad why he used the name william sharp when he married my mum.

I would use it to visit my great grandfather who seems, from what I have discovered, to have had a finge in every pie and to have held down several jobs at once as well as being parish clerk, overseer, sexton, and secretary of the local social club. I would love to know how he managed it as I struggle with one full time job and 2 kids. I suspect he had a strong - but largely undocumented wife - to support him.