By oral histories, we mean the interviewing of eye-witness participants in the vent of the

past for the purposes of historical reconstruction. And through oral history interviews,
working class men, women n indigenous people or members of cultural minorities,
among others, have inscribed their experience on the historical record and offered their
own interpretation of history.
Most significantly and uniquely, oral historians speak to their sources and this active
human relationship transforms the practice of history in several ways. The narrator recalls
not only the past but also asserts his/her interpretation of that past, and in participatory
oral history projects the interviewee can be a historian as well as the source.
Exactly when historians began to use interviews to gather information and whether this
can be characterized as ‘oral history interviewing’ has been much debated. Interviewing
was not until recently was rarely a technique routinely embraced by historical profession
largely fixated paper-based research and frequently hostile to eye-witness and interview
date. But in other spheres, others like journalist were routinely using interviews from the
middle of the 19th century onwards, and by the turn of 20th century, anthropology and
social investigators were valuing interview evidence. The invention of recorded sound at
the end of the 19th century, and particularly the advent of portable tape-recorder n the
1950’s liberated researcher from laborious note-taking, at the same time focusing
attention on the process of recording memory. That initial fission of hearing the authentic
voice and the discovery of previously undocumented voice has given way to more acute
reflection about the interviewer relationship.
There are various techniques adopted by historians to conduct their interviews; Studs
Terkel characterizes interviewer as an explorer, making up the rules, building rapport and
intimacy, listens and asks open-ended questions, doesn’t interrupt, etc. The essential skill
of listening is explored further by Kathryn Anderson and Dana Jack who says interviewer
needs to shift from ‘informal gathering to interaction’. We must be vigilant to
discrepancies between what is said through the convections of ordinary social
conversation and the meanings that lie beneath. Listening for ‘meta-statements’ or
reflections, for silences and for internal inconsistencies becomes vital. As oral history
techniques have been adopted all over the world there has been a growing awareness that
interviewing is significantly more both complex and culturally specific; that methods
taken for granted by oral historians in the developed world of the north can be wholly
inappropriate for research in the south.
Whilst there has been critical writing about cross-cultural interview in recent years, this
has been less obvious in the case of family history interviewing. There are issues around
family myth and memory; there are pitfalls in using the interview techniques alongside
paper-based family records such as parish records and parish records and census returns,
and there are practical considerations about whether or not to interview a husband and
wife together. Ruth Finnegan draws upon her own family migration experience to reveal
the challenges of recording conflicting versions of the ‘same’ family story. She notes how
seemingly simple stories might have a mystic status within the family as key ‘turning
points’; the origin of bitter quarrel or love matches. The value of moral testimony for
family historians is not in doubt, but the complexities of the family context need careful
evaluation.
Ruth Finnegan is a visiting research professor and emeritus professor at the Open
University well known for her publications on the anthropology of oral tradition,
literature and orality. She writes in ‘Family myths, memories and interviewing’, that most
families have their own stories and traditions, perhaps tellers are not fully conscious that
they are crystallizing their family’s heritage, telling and retelling stories that express that
family’s being. Yet this is a common feature of family experience.
These stories and sayings that have come to represent a family’s tradition may not look
‘deep’ at first sight, nor are they always told consistently but they gradually take on a
symbolic depth. Traditions often emerge or become more formulated in situations of
change or crisis. Migration can separate family members drastically, but can also add all
the more symbolic depth to selective memories. Explicit crystallization of a family’s
shared memories also result from a family history or individual autobiography being
written or recorded; like Finnegan’s own experience; which she fully realized after
reading her mother’s autobiography. Though not everyone in the family sees it in the
same way though; there can be competing images, but these tales do more than just
express a particular sense of history. These are also told through generations. A special
bond often forms as grandparents pass these tales on to grandchildren, resulting in myths,
which whether or not accurate in factual term, play a part in molding family’s view of
themselves and their experience.
Traditions may not be fully conscious but still have an effect on family memories and
action. These are again further questions to explore, not just about what goes on inside a
family but also the influence of external ideas and conventions. Myths and images current
in particular epochs or in particular cultures themselves affect family and individual
memories and shape the ways they represent the past, even their own experience. So in
analyzing the memories of individuals, whether or not expressed in a family context, also
to be taken into account are themes and narrative models current in the culture of time.
What’s important is how our memories are build up through myths and images, by the
conventions and ideologies around us. So when we look at the products of memories,
whether autobiographies, life stories or the records of oral interviews, we should also
reflect on how they have been generated and expressed, it must be remembered that they
aren’t limpid empirical data, transmitted by mechanical process, nor does it mean
research drawn on oral research is to be dismissed. On the contrary its one of the most
recognized and growing research method in family and community history.