When we study history we are trying to imagine ourselves in times past. We can't talk to people who lived during these times, but we can talk to our parents, grandparents and our great-grandparents. The people we meet everyday are not likely to have written an article for a magazine or paper, let alone a book. In the early an of the 20th century people still kept diaries and wrote letters, but now in this age of technology we no longer take the time to keep track of our daily activities. Letters are written on computers and purged when the disk gets too full.
Few people save letters they receive.
Our written historical record is now almost totally dependent on what the historians say and what our libraries save. Oral history can play a major role in recording the history that we no longer write down. You may be celebrating your 10th, 50th or any other anniversary in the near future. A perfect project for this anniversary would be to record the story of how the parish began. Although oral history interviews can be done by anyone, this is a very good teaching method for the parish teens.