Where is the Time Machine backup of my home/user folder?

I just realized that Time Machine hasn't created any backups of my "home directory"/"user folder" ... i.e. I can't find any of my documents or pictures (e.g. the iPhoto library) on the external hard drive.
I checked whether I somehow had listed my user folder on the "exclusion list", but the only thing listed there was the external hard drive (which makes sense).
Does anyone know what I can do about this? I really need Time Machine to backup my photos!!!
(I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4)

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

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