Discover your inside story with AncestryDNA®

October 5, 2014

If I Could Time Travel Just Once

If I Could Time Travel Just Once
I've been watching the TV Series "Outlander" on Sunday nights and really enjoying it. For those that don't know anything about it, it's a story of a young British nurse in the 1940s who is on her honeymoon in England. She is accidentally transported back to 1740s Scotland in a fluke of time travel. 

That got me thinking - if I had access to a time machine or some time travel method, but I could only be guaranteed of making one trip, where would I go and what would I do?

Would I just go back to the week before the 50 million dollar lottery was won, and buy a ticket? After all the winning numbers were posted online. Or would I solve a genealogy mystery by going back and asking my 2nd great grandpa Joseph McGinnis who the heck his parents were and where in Ireland he was born!

Perhaps I could save the Irish records from being destroyed in 1922? 

Or should I try to do something noble and altruistic like make sure the Titantic didn't sink or tackle an even bigger challenge that would affect more people in a positive way? 

Or maybe I'd just do something special just for me - like visit my dad who died when I was 14 and enjoy a wonderful day with him. What a beautiful memory that would make.

What would you do? Maybe you'd go to the future and not the past?


5 comments:

Michael F Harris said...

I'm not sure I would want to go back. Sometimes people aren't what you expect, it would ruin things to see them as they really are. The future is a big no. I don't want to see how things could end.

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

It is a thought provoking question isn't it? Since it's bound to be hypothetical I'd vote for you having a day with your dad. I think I might spend a day with my grandparents, dad and his cousins when they were visiting, and forgo asking my great great grandfather how he came to Australia from Germany...or maybe not. Good thing we don't have to choose Lorine!

Kristin said...

I've never seen this series so I don't know if she stays forever or just a short jaunt. I guess I will have to watch. I'm thinking I would like to go back to when my parents and grandparents were all alive and maybe spend a Christmas or Thanksgiving might be better, between the two houses where I would be able to see them all again. Or would I be an additional me just watching without being able to interact.

Peanut said...

I would go back to the year 1700 and watch my decendant's step off the boat and become friends with them and ask lots of questions and make drawings of the person.That way i could be 100% sure who where there family and to be able to trace them back to there origins.

Anonymous said...

I would go back 10 years ago and prevent my daughter's accidental death and change the outcome that would lead to my husband's death.