local history (via Sasa Hasan, originated by Arne Mauser), from Aachen, propagandized by me (Jon May)

put the contents of 'localhistory' into your .bashrc (or your .bash_profile? I always forget which. Maybe it's system dependent).

Then a .history file will be created in each directory you have write permission in that you do work in.

use the command 'h' to grep the .history file for commands you may have run.

This isn't perfect but it works for me.