A meeting of Corangamite Shire's keenest historians in Cobden has revealed tales of the past are being forgotten.

Heytesbury Historical Society member Gavan Deppeler said preserving bygone times was an area in need of "urgent attention".

"Educating and communicating the need to retain local history - in particular oral history - is an area of urgent attention," he said.

Fellow member Neil Trotter said a decline in group numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic, an ageing volunteer base and a lack of uniformity often made efforts futile.

"A lot of history dating right back to early settlement is being lost," he said.

"A lot of the oral history relates to farming families but they often don't record or write it down.

"That rich, early history is so important and it's getting lost when you lose those people - information on soldier settlement schemes, for example, have been lost by families who were the original pioneers.

"It's just never been recorded."

Mr Trotter said he'd seen an increased interest in residents wanting to find out more about their family history, but helping them was challenging.

"There is a lot of recorded history put out by individual authors, but little is being done to bring it altogether," he said.

"Recording is disjointed at a lot of depositories around the area - we need a unified system. It's frustrating.

"I'm from a farming family and I've tried to find information on my great, great grandfather.

"I found his grave in Camperdown but to get the history of him and his family hasn't been easy - you have to go back through shire records or old newspaper cuttings and quite often it's only the death notice you get access to.

"History's important because it's a precursor of what happens now. The time we've got on earth is pretty imminent, as you get older it becomes more of a priority that this stuff is recorded."

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