Re Rosie's post above: I think the only way this would happen would be if the old dear in question didn't label them as folk songs - just as old family songs, for example. If she consciously considered them to be folk songs, then the whole experience would have surely been tainted by the archly artificial intrusion that is defined folk. Without wanting to romantically pine for proof of continued existence in 21st Century Britain of a whole caste of naifs, and taking Pip's point about the role of mass technology in seeing off the oral tradition (c/f Jim Carroll's anecdote about the role of TV in finishing off the oral tradition in traveller communities), the conditions in which the old dear lived would have had to be pretty remarkable. It you find her, buy her a pint from me!

Of course, there'd be no guarantee that her 17 year old grandkid with a brand new elecrtic guitar hadn't just written a far superior set of songs - its just that we wouldn't be scratching our heads as to whether to call them folk.