ORAL HISTORY

["yolanda medina-perez" <windrocklili@...>]

Recently I went to the library at UTEP in El Paso and discovered two 
interesting projects, one which deals with oral history and 
basically dealing with their memories of life in El Paso and of 
course how they lived back in the early 1930s, 40s, etc.  My cousins 
grandmother was interviewed and recorded. The conversation was later 
transcribed and is available to the public. The second discovery 
were the files of Cleofas Calleros. During the 1940s, people who 
lived in in the US and were originally from Mexico would go to his 
office for documentation if they needed to go into the interior of 
Mexico. In these records I found pictures of my four grandparents, 
uncles,aunts,cousins and inlaws. Some of the documents give place of 
birth, place, parents, spouse and their prsent adddress. They even 
include a brief physical description.  WOW! what a find, they also 
made copies for me. Just visit the 6th floor at UTEP Library but be 
prepared with list of names and plenty of time. The one draw back is 
the very sad fact that the files from A-E FILES WERE DESTROYED 
before the new owners offered the collection to the University. 
Thanks to UTEP I now have a little more info about my family and 
some very treasured pictures, Oh and by the way they allow you to 
take a digital camera in and take pictures.     
Now my QUESTION????
Have any of the ranchos members done any oral history work and if so 
what would be a good format for genealogy/family purposes?  Help