History Research

I have occasionally implored readers to check out my other, rather dull, site about postwar local history, which I have linked to on the sidebar. This is not another plea but rather a whinge. As a totally untrained historian I have been trying to learn how to get the most out of archives, but have found it very difficult. Many documents are only fragments of files, the rest of which have been destroyed. Finding anything of substance is extremely difficult and often something will look promising in the catalogue but will turn out to be irrelevant or very thin. Searching through newspapers is also difficult, unless you have something you are looking for. Microfiches hurt the eyes after a few minutes if you are just skimming through and besides, I am never quite sure where to go to back up what I find there. Is it that nothing interesting has happened, or that it just hasn't been documented? Am I missing something massive, making me look a total fool? I have resisted trying to interview people, possibly because doing it on an amateur level means I can't say "Oh, it's for a book"- well it may turn out to be, but isn't at the moment, or for the foreseeable future, so I don't feel as though anyone will want to give their time to me. Perhaps I'm being pathetic here. I cannot believe that nothing interesting has happened in this place during 50 years of unparalled social and economic and technological change. What if it hasn't, though? What if life and death have just carried on, plodded through the years undisturbed by anything dramatic or newsworthy? Imagine it - a village where nothing ever happens. It's almost an X File, although it would turn out with Mulder and Scully scratching their heads at the end saying "I don't believe it, Scully. you're right. There really is, nothing to it at all. Nothing at all."