Hello again.
The only advise I can give from 36 years of research is nothing ventured, nothing gained. Plant your seed where ever you think it may get you a result, and wait for a harvest. Search engines like Google bring together people, in a way that was impossible when I started.
In about 2000, when I wanted to take some research into Siberia I obtained a separate email address because of spam,[ before the days of emphasis on personal computers having 3rd party spam protection]. Good thing I did, because some very objectionable spam was soon coming my way, but also a 17 page scientific paper [in Russian] I was looking for. Translating proved to be out of my budget, so an English / Russian dictionary was obtained, and I achieved some time later, a translation of sorts, only to learn that an Incorporated Society I belonged to, had the ability to handle the 5 or so differing keyboard translations. Then last year on a NZ beach I got talking to a foreigner only to discover that his best mate, through his TOMSK University years, was married to the Universities Librarian who went out of her way to help me find the Russian paper. Had I known the guy at the beach, he could have translated for me.
I placed possibly 20 or more toll calls throughout NZ trying to locate the five farms a man on a tour of discovery took photos of in 1954, before going blind. He told me the regions he visited, but for the life of me, I could not place the farms with the photos, until I learnt, in casual conversation, that a social colleague had worked as a youth, in one area of interest. He put me in contact with a farmer who was able to solve my problem. Plus fill me in with the background history.
Do not panic, nor loose heart, just give it time and hopefully some day someone will hand you a key to help unravel your mysteries.
- Alan.
