I've always had a tendency to follow questions long after most people would probably have moved on.
It doesn't have much to do with the subject. I've done it with music, businesses, people, property, history, technology, old records and things I've stumbled across online. Something doesn't quite make sense, or two pieces of information don't seem to fit together, and I want to know why.
Usually I don't know where I'm going when I start.
One question leads to another. A name in one document turns up somewhere completely different. A newspaper story leads to a property record. A company leads to another company. Someone asks how to find a particular piece of obsolete equipment, and after a little digging it becomes apparent that the equipment isn't really what they're looking for at all.
Sometimes the most important part is figuring out what the actual question is.
I've spent years doing this in one form or another. Some investigations last an afternoon. Others have followed me around for months or even years. Some produce a satisfying answer. Some produce five more questions. Some end when I finally have enough information to decide there probably isn't anything more worth chasing.
I've never been particularly interested in research for the sake of accumulating facts. What
