That's the real trick to research in my opinion: when you see names of people & organizations & events in the course of your research, look them ALL up. Some will not connect to anything relevant, but you won't know that if you don't look nor do you know what might turn out to be a connection later once you've collected a few more pieces.
Honestly, maybe don't ignore emails from people who learned to do research in grad school & have been applying it to the rest of their life for some time.
