SNGF: Time Travel

Randy at Genea-Musings for his weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun asks us to travel in time.

1) Let's go time traveling: Decide what year and what place you would love to visit as a time traveler. Who would you like to see in their environment? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?

2) Tell us about it. Write a blog post, or make a comment to this post, or on Facebook, or in Genealogy Wise.

So many choices.

Option 1)

Travel back in time to 1850. My great-great grandmother Sarah Ann Hartley was about 16 years old, and according to the census, I believe she is a helping hand for Sarah and Hardy Ware in Houston County, Texas. Her mother, Eliza, and brothers William and Samuel are in a different Houston household, along with a Wheeler family. I'd like to interview Eliza: "Tell me everything you know about your parents, and your late husband George's parents." Maybe Eliza can help me get the facts of our Native American ancestry straight. By 1900 when they were standing in front of the Dawes commission, Eliza's son Samuel, and several grandchildren, were mightily confused. Sarah passed away in 1898.

[I'd travel back in time to when both Eliza and George were alive, but my knowledge of where they were when is confused, so I might get the settings incorrect.]

Option 2)

Travel back in time to 1890 Losice, Poland. Great great grandparents Morris and Belle Blatt should still be married with two infants: Blanche and Anna. [I'll need an interpreter who understands both Yiddish and English for this trip.] Since I can only ask one of them the question, I'll ask Belle to tell me everything she knows about her parents and Morris's parents.

Family lore, directly from her daughters, says Belle's maiden name was Wyman. Her daughter Blanche also married a Wyman. Research has found *a* Morris Blatt in Losice who married a Chaia Beila Boksern. The middle name is close enough to Belle, but it is doubtful her daughters would have confused the surname, especially since one of them married a Wyman, resulting in the obvious family jokes. However, one of Belle's granddaughters thinks Morris was Belle's second husband, making it possible Boksern was her first married name. Hopefully Belle/Beila can straighten this out.

If the research found the correct Morris Blatt, it tracks the Blatt line back several more generations.

There are more people I'd interview, but choosing one from my maternal and one from my paternal lineage seems like a fair place to stop.