Who Would You Like to Meet? If Genealogists Could Travel Through Time

⏰ If Genealogists Could Travel Through Time

Do you remember Marty McFly meeting his parents before they became his parents in Back to the Future?

As a researcher, I often wonder what it would be like to meet the people I am researching. I would have so many questions for them.

In this series, Who Would You Like to Meet? I want to encourage you to approach your genealogical research as if you were actually going to interview the person you are researching. What would you want to know? What questions would you ask? More importantly, why do you want to know?

Asking the right questions can determine the direction and outcome of your research.

This isn't about traveling into the past to judge people or change outcomes. It's about understanding. I want to know the good, the bad, and even the ugly parts of their lives. All of those experiences contributed to the people they became—and ultimately to the people we are today.

Time travel has fascinated the movie industry for generations. Why?

Maybe because somewhere deep inside us is a desire to know the past—to understand the people, decisions, circumstances, and events that eventually led to us.

For genealogists, perhaps the question isn't simply, "What if I could travel through time?"

Perhaps it is:

Who would I find? Why would I choose them? And what would I ask?

👤 WHO Would You Find?

Who is the person in your family history you most want to know?

This could be an ancestor you have researched for years or someone you know almost nothing about. It could even be someone you knew personally.

Although I knew my parents into adulthood, I never had the opportunity to ask many of the deeper questions I have about their lives today.

That's something worth thinking about.

If your "Who" is still living, don't wait for a time machine. Develop an approach to learn more about that person now. Go beyond the surface. Ask about experiences, relationships, disappointments, accomplishments, decisions, and dreams.

Because the person you choose isn't just about them.

Who you would find is also about you.

❓ WHY This Person?

What sparked your interest in your "Who?"

This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself as a researcher.

Why this person instead of someone else?

Many genealogists begin with their parents, grandparents, and other close relatives, then work backward. Eventually, however, your family tree starts branching in many different directions.

At some point, you have to decide where to focus.

My own family research began with a basic family tree and eventually led me down a particular branch. When I had gone as far as I could with that branch, I shifted my attention to another.

The further back you travel, the more things change. Geography changes. Historical events change. Social conditions change. Records change. And your research methods may need to change with them.

At some point, you have to choose a direction.

Understanding your "Why" can help you determine where to go next.

📝 WHAT Would You Ask?

Now imagine that your time machine works.

You've found the person.

You're standing in front of them.

What are you going to ask?

This question may be just as important as identifying the person. In some cases, the questions you want answered may actually determine who you choose to find.

Start by asking yourself:

What mystery am I trying to solve?

The generic questions—birth, marriage, children, occupations, residences, and death—provide the groundwork. But targeted questions can help us build something much more interesting: a profile of a life.

I deliberately use the word profile because I want to understand a person beyond dates, locations, and events.

I want to know what may have made that person click.

What motivated them?

What challenges did they face?

Why did they make certain decisions?

What was happening around them?

And how did those experiences shape the person they became?

🔎 Become the Detective

Genealogists have something in common with good detectives.

A good detective notices clues that others might overlook and then tries to determine how those individual pieces fit together.

When I was first introduced to forensics, I remember thinking, Wow, that is tedious and difficult work—trying to recreate something from the pieces left behind.

Genealogy can be much the same.

Our pieces might be census records, newspapers, photographs, military records, city directories, Church records, land transactions, DNA results, family stories, or countless other sources.

First come the facts.

Then comes our interpretation of those facts.

That interpretation may lead us to a reasonable theory. A theory may cause us to ask another question. And sometimes those questions require a little imagination.

But we have to know where the evidence ends and imagination begins.

👨🏾 My First Time-Travel Destination

One of the first people I want to meet in this series is my father.

I know many facts about his life, and I was blessed to have him with me until I was 41.

But there is still a mystery surrounding who he was as a young adult.

Records and the questions I asked while he was alive have given me a superficial understanding of that period. But they haven't completely answered a much bigger question:

Who was my father before I knew him as my father?

Years before his passing, I found a newspaper clipping about a group called the Men of Fairfax. My father was a member.

That discovery opened another door into a part of his life I didn't fully know.

Who were the Men of Fairfax?

Why was my father involved?

What did the organization mean to him?

And what can I learn about the young man he was by understanding this part of his life?

We'll start looking for those answers in Episode 1.

🚗 Building Our Time-Travel Machine

Unfortunately, we can't climb into a DeLorean and travel backward through time.

But genealogists have another kind of time machine.

Research.

Records, newspapers, photographs, publications, DNA, historical context, oral histories, and other sources allow us to reconstruct pieces of the world our ancestors inhabited.

Research requires evidence. But I don't believe that means we have to abandon the question:

"What if?"

"What if?" can lead to a hypothesis.

"What if these two people were related?"

"What if this historical event influenced the family's move?"

"What if there is another explanation for what I'm seeing in the records?"

Those questions can inspire research.

But evidence must ultimately determine whether our "What if?" survives.

That's where imagination and genealogy have to work together carefully.

Imagination helps us reconstruct possibilities; it doesn't become evidence.

💭 He Had a Life Before Me

I imagine my father much differently today than I did growing up or even as a young adult.

I've come to realize something incredibly simple:

He actually had a life before me.

Our ancestors did, too.

They weren't born with the names we eventually entered into our family trees.

They were children.

They had friendships.

They fell in love.

They worked.

They celebrated.

They experienced disappointments.

They made good decisions and probably some bad ones.

They lived lives.

Our job as researchers is to discover as much of those lives as the evidence allows—and then tell their stories responsibly.

🕰️ Who Would YOU Like to Meet?

So, before we begin this journey, I want you to build your own imaginary time machine.

You get one trip.

You can meet one person from your family history.

Ask yourself:

WHO would I meet?

WHY would I choose this person?

WHAT would I ask them?

Then ask one final question:

HOW can I use genealogical research to begin finding those answers today?

Write your questions down. Look at what you already know. Identify what you don't know. Then start looking for the records, clues, and evidence that might bring you closer to the person you wish you could meet.

You may discover that your genealogical time machine has been sitting in front of you all along.

Now, who would you like to meet?

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