How accurate is oral history?

How accurate is oral history?

Because oral histories rely on the memory of individuals, some of my colleagues believe they are less reliable sources than written documents. But oral histories really can correct, confirm, and add to the historical record.

What does oral history mean?

Oral history is a method of conducting historical research through recorded interviews between a narrator with personal experience of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of adding to the historical record.

What is meant by oral sources?

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews.

Is oral history a primary source?

Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a witness to or participant in an event. Primary sources may include diaries, letters, interviews, oral histories, photographs, newspaper articles, government documents, poems, novels, plays, and music.

How can we preserve oral history?

There are a few basic rules for magnetic recording preservation of an oral history collection:

1. Save the original tape as well as the transcript of the interview.
2. Make an audio copy for public use, do not allow an original to be used.
3. Store tapes away from magnetic fields.

How do sources of history help in reconstructing the past?

Historical sources are the sum total of all evidence left behind by past human society which help in reconstructing history. For studying the details of past cultures, historians depend a lot upon historical sources to tease information out of them.

What can oral traditions tell us about the past?

Oral tradition is usually eventually written down, but can tell us so much about the society and the people who originated them and allowed history to be kept and shared by groups who do or did not have writing.

How can we reconstruct history?

From historian’s point of view, literary sources include all texts- long and short, written or oral; archaeological sources include all tangible, material remains . These material remains can be used to reconstruct history and can be seen as windows to the past.

Why do historians reconstruct the past?

Historians look for causes and effects that help to explain how and why events happened. They try to see the past through the eyes of the people who lived it. When they study the past, historians ask themselves questions. The answers to the questions help historians draw conclusions about the past.