Friday, February 4, 2011

Radio Interviews - A Genealogy Resource

Reading a blog post, A night in a Cylone,  from Sydney Radio Station ABC 702 got me thinking about the value of radio interviews to genealogists. The descendants of this family who was caught in Cyclone Yasi will, in years to come no doubt be interested in hearing of their ordeal.

The blog posts from our national broadcaster often include audio clips of the interview, in addition there are many podcasts of radio and TV interviews available on the internet from the ABC and other broadcasters.

Google does not always index the content on broadcasters' sites. A quick search of the ABC site for my second cousin once removed, Arthur Beetson (who shares my Phipps,Magick and Hayward convict ancestors), brought back more than 100 hits or links to ABC resources that mentioned "Big Artie".I will need to trawl through these to see if there are any recordings but what I have found will certainly provide some valuable information to add to Artie's entry on my family tree.

These audio recordings that not only relate stories also allow us to hear the interviewees voices with their accents and intonations. How valuable they will be for genealogists in the future as they want to learn about their ancestors

So genealogists, think of future generations, make copies of any audio and video recordings of your family members you find in radio and TV station archives so that they are preserved.

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