Buck and Roger are currently in 1739, a time when Dougal and Geillis met in Outlander. It’s led to a lot of questions about when Buck MacKenzie was born, and what could happen if he remains in this time period.
The TV show has worked with some of the book dates, which aren’t always accurate. There are inconsistencies in the story, and the show has tried, in some cases, to fix that. One of the changes made was the year Buck left the past. In the books, he left in 1782, but in the TV show, he left in 1778.
What about when he was born? This could affect how long he has in the past if he ends up remaining there.
Reverend Wakefield’s family tree isn’t accurate in Outlander
One thing we do know is that Roger’s family tree isn’t all that accurate. He didn’t know that Buck’s parents weren’t his biological parents. It meant that Reverend Wakefield had no idea that Dougal and Geillis were his parents. After all, nobody would have passed this information on, and it would hve been forever lost if it wasn’t for time travel.
The family tree has Buck’s birth year listed as 1744. This contradicts something that happens in Outlander season 1.
Dougal said Buck was already born in Outlander season 2
During the end of Outlander season 1 (I think I got it wrong in a previous post and said season 2), Dougal and Claire cross paths again. Dougal shares that the boy has been born. This would put his month of birth as December 1743, a little bit earlier than Reverend Wakefield wrote it down as.
There are reasons for the inconsistency in the date. One of those is that the further you go back, the less information there is. It is possible that Reverend Wakefield didn’t have the right year of birth based on the records. He wouldn’t have known Buck was adopted.
Do the Outlander books help us?
Diana Gabaldon isn’t the most consistent with dates and times in her books, so they don’t help us too much either. What we do know is that Buck is supposed to have died at the age of 38. He is believed dead in 1782, which would suggest that the birth year of 1744 is correct.
The TV show has changed the year of his death to 1778. So, we can’t even work things out with the books based on this. It makes Buck five years older than he would have been in the books.
We’re putting Buck’s birth as December 1743 in the show based on Dougal’s words. It’s easy to understand why Reverend Wakefield got it wrong. This means Buck as just short of five years in the past if he ends up staying, and then he’ll find out what happens when he’s born while he’s still alive.
The Outlander season 7 finale airs on Friday, Jan. 17 on STARZ.
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