First-hand accounts are very important in research, because they are recordings of observations made by individuals at the time of an isolated event or an ongoing event or activity.
Sources of first-hand accounts:
1. Logbooks of ship captains, aircraft pilots, lighthouse keepers, etc;
2. Personal Letters to other people, including loved ones, businesses, govern ment agencies;
3. Personal Letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines in response to an article read or to express an opinion; Most are never published, but there may be an archive of such leetters mauntained by the newspaoer or periodical;
4. Personal Journals of events on trips, expeditions, military campaigns, etc; On a particular expedition, there may be several personal journals maintained by different people;
5. Official Journals of events on trips, expeditions, military campaigns, etc. There is usually one or more designated persons required to do this; Who are they and what is their title; Is it the leader of the particular unit, be it a platoon, regiment, division, etc?
6. Laboratory Journals of experiments conducted and results;
7. Diaries;
8. Emails;
9. Comments about online articles, postings, etc.
10. Blogs, and Blog comments;
11. Discussion group postings: These are among the most important, because all people interested in a particular subject will give comments, information they perssonally know about, etc.; This is why it is important to track down all the old discussion groups; "mailing lists", etc. and get all the comments before they are lost;
12. Oral recordings of people's comments, stories, conversations, interviews, etc. including people appearing on radio talk shows;
13. Video recordings of people's comments, stories, conversations, interviews, etc., including comments made by people interviewed in documentaries, TV shows, etc.