How should memoirs be used as historical sources?

How should memoirs be read when studying history, given bias, reliability, personal accounts, and the unique perspectives they provide?

Treat a memoir's status and reliability as question-specific: identify what the author directly experienced, test memory and perspective, and corroborate claims against independent histories and contemporary records.

Aaron Evans's prompt leads to a question-specific method for judging memoirs. First decide whether the memoir is primary evidence for the exact research question, because direct participation differs from reporting events learned second-hand. Then ask when it was written, what diaries or papers could refresh memory, and whether the claimed detail is plausible after the elapsed time. Cross-check broad chronology against general histories before moving to specialist studies, correspondence, official records, and battle summaries. Agreement across independent sources builds confidence, while secrecy, friendship, perspective, and unexplained gaps set limits on what the memoir can prove.