Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Installing a Celing fan with old copper wiring

Please help I have a house built in 1956 with copper wiring I just took down the old fixture and was met with a cluster of wires connected in no rhyme or reason, there are two sets of wires comming in from each side so i have 8 wires all together 4 black and 4 white but here lies the problem the wall outlet was tied in there somehow and now that I am trying to tye all the wires back together I have no idea which combanation they should be in I would assume the standard white to white black to black would not apply here, or would it? After I figure this out I should have no trouble with installing the fan correct???

Thanks for the help

I guess all the wires were nutted together before you took them apart, right. But you took them apart anyway, right? Common problem. There should have been only a white and black on the old light fixture, and now, your job is to find them again. You probably have a switch loop, which makes the white-white and black-black null and void as in the loop one of the white wires is really "black".
Do you have access to a volt meter or a tick tracer (voltage detector)? Do you feel comfortable working with diagnosing your wiring problem? We don't want to place you in harm's way but will help you the best we can not being able to see what you see. Maybe if you post a picture of your ceiling box. It may help.

no they wern't nutted together! I wish they were then I could have put them back the same way they were!!! at one time taped but it had all disinagrated and they were just stuck together with sticky resadue and when i took down the old fixture they just came appart, yes I have a volt meter, Thanks for the continued advise

Oooh, you are fast. Just to be on the safe side, you may want to visit a local big box store or hardware store and purchase a tick tracer. They allow you to detect the presence of voltage without actually touching the wires. You will need to know which wire is hot. Once you determine that, the rest is safer. The detector runs about $9, so it is a good investment. ONce you have that, pull all the wires down from the box, separate them and cap them off. Turn the power back on and touch it to the caps one at a time to see which one is hot. Mark that cap with a magic marker so you will not confuse it later. Post back.