[otrs] Tickets not in database

Hello List, We are running otrs 1.3.2. I am tasked with building a staging environment to test both an upgrade and the addition of a few modules. While doing this I have discovered that our tickets are not actually being stored in the MySQL database we created (that is also setup correctly in Config.pm http://Config.pm). I am actually unable to find out how our tickets are stored! Though when looking through otrs backups I am able to find sql dumps, despite having a empty sql database? Could somebody please help me find out where my tickets are being stored and how to get them into my database! :-) Many Thanks Rachel Graves