By Roselyn Fauth
I remember one night not long ago when I climbed into bed far later than I had intended... I had put my pyjamas on at a sensible hour. I was only going to finish one small piece of research. Just tidy up a loose end before switching off. The house was quiet. The glow from my phone and Netflix on the TV were the few lights in the room.
Then I clicked on one name... That name led to a court notice... The court notice mentioned a witness... The witness appeared again in another file... And before I knew it, it was 11pm.
As I finally turned off the light, I had that familiar internal conversation.
You’ve done it again.
You were meant to stay focused.
You’ve gone off on a tangent...
For a few years now, that voice told me wandering meant weakness. That real historians moved in straight lines. That discipline meant staying on track and being efficient.
But lying there replaying the connections in my head, I realised something had shifted.
I wasn’t distracted... I was on the hunt... And I was enjoying it.
I Used to Think Discipline Meant Staying in My Lane
When I first began researching local history, I felt slightly apologetic about not having formal training.
I don’t work in a museum.
I don’t hold a history degree.
I learned from friends, archivists, librarians, kaumātua, descendants, and from making mistakes.
So when I drifted from my original question, I assumed it proved I was amateur.
Stay focused.
Stick to the brief.
Don’t wander.
That was the narrative in my head.
Then I Learned: This Is Actually a Recognised Method
What surprised me later was discovering that what I had called distraction has a name, and the side-quest is something many embrace.
Information scientist Marcia Bates describes research as “berrypicking”. You gather pieces from different places. Each discovery reshapes your question. Research is not linear. It evolves.
Others call it information foraging. You follow the scent of a promising clue and move on when the trail goes cold.
Microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg argues that small, overlooked traces can unlock entire worlds.
So, in other words, the side quest is not undisciplined... It is recognised practice. I just did not know I was practising it.
The Detail That Changed the Story
That particular 11pm detour had begun with a well recorded local man. Merchant. Civic figure. His story was tidy and familiar.
But a small reference led me to a document that mentioned his widow managing debt after his death.
It was not dramatic.
It was not central.
It was not what I had gone looking for.
But it shifted everything.
The polished version celebrated enterprise and growth. The side quest revealed vulnerability. It revealed a woman carrying financial responsibility quietly and competently in the background. I didn't realise that inheritane and wills didn't always provide security or assurance. And so I was on another side quest to learn about the laws, why women had it rough, what changed, who advocated and how are our lives today different.
So you see... that fragment brought breath back into the archive, and it stayed with me long after the light was off.
Archives Reflect What People Once Valued
Over time I began to understand something else. That archives can preserve what earlier generations believed was important. That means some lives sit confidently at the centre of the page. Others hover at the edges... in the margins. some are not on the page at all.
Women described only as “Mrs”, the property of her man. Her man the property of the royals.
Daughters summarised in a line, or maybe just in a headcount of children.
Māori relationships reduced to a sentence.
I realise now, that their stories were not always absent. That they were often trimmed.
Community historians like me are not working against institutions. We are working alongside them, expanding the lens, noticing what was overlooked, asking new questions of old records. Looking into the past with today's lens.
The side quests often lead into those margins, uncharted teritory of facts and information, waiting for someone to piece them together.
Why This Matters to Me
As a woman, and as a mother of two young girls, I feel that pull strongly. I want my daughters to inherit a past where women are visible. When they ask what I am working on, I tell them I am looking for women who were never given much space on the page. And often, I find them on the detours.
A probate note.
A school record.
A land transfer.
A witness list.
The margins are crowded once you start looking.
The Joy of the Hunt
There is something joyful about it.
Not chaotic. Not careless.
Curious. Alive.
You follow one thread and it opens into three more. The past stops being sepia and becomes layered and human. You feel the quiet thrill of connection. Time disappears.
That night, instead of criticising myself for drifting, I recognised something else.
The joy was telling me I was learning.
Discipline Looks Different Than I Thought
Embracing the side quest does not mean abandoning rigour.
There is discipline in documenting where you went.
In checking assumptions.
In returning to the central question.
In acknowledging bias.
In knowing when a trail has gone cold.
But there is also discipline in listening when something tugs.
How we choose to research shapes whose lives are remembered.
If we never leave the main road, we inherit a narrow past.
If we are willing to step sideways, we bring back stories that were once trimmed because they did not fit the narrative of their time.
What That Night Taught Me
That 11pm evening was small. Ordinary. Easy to dismiss.
But it marked a shift.
I stopped apologising for curiosity.
I stopped equating wandering with weakness.
I began to understand that learning how to learn is a discipline in itself.
The side quest was never the distraction.
It was the doorway into a fuller, truer past.
And sometimes, it is where the real story has been waiting all along.