First of all, this is not a huge deal, but...
I went to search through my old messages looking for one particular thread from about a year ago. It was an exchange i had with a potential Cragslist seller. Everything was fine, he seemed like a nice guy but the transaction just didn't work out for me, and I was curious if ended up selling to someone else.
Anyway, I looked back about a month ago and again a few weeks ago, and I was able to find the short exchange easily enough. Unfortunately i figured they'd always be there, so I never thought to write down the person's phone number (I have only a first name). Well, I went to look again a few days ago and I could scroll no further back than about a year. I also contacted the service provider and they can only go back a year as well.
I don't use iCloud to back up. Rather, when I think of it, I use iTunes to back up my phone. Is it likely older messages would be in a previous iTunes phone backup? If so, any idea how I'd go about accessing them?