One of the key aspects to writing about history is to find eye-witness accounts of major events, rather than depending on newspaper reports and official reports. This can take you back further than you might expect. For example, in a football context, there are still people alive today who met the players in the first international of 1872. I wrote about one of them, Walter Fergusson, in the Herald a couple of years ago; he could remember meeting his great-uncle William Mackinnon who had played for Scotland in that match.
Of course, this is not always possible and the next best thing is to have access to a primary source such as a scrapbook. The Victorians, in particular, were great ones for sticking things in books and I have seen some wonderful artefacts and ephemera that have survived in this way.
Sometimes, however, the amount of material can be overwhelming. I recently inherited a large chest, pictured above, which contains the scrapbooks and picture albums of two grandparents. They both led interesting lives, covering (in his case) a Glasgow upbringing, a career in the British Raj, and a lengthy retirement in Edinburgh; and (in her case) a childhood in Lancashire as part of a large Scottish family, service as a nurse in WW1 that included being sunk on a hospital ship, and an MBE for services to genealogy. They lived to 97 and 103 respectively.
It will take me years to go through all the books. However, if I have inherited their longevity genes I should manage to find the time. I suspect it will be an intensely rewarding experience.