It is also due to the lack of people available who are able and willing to do the research, even if it is on a fee-paying basis. As a rule, UK Societies do not have libraries or headquarters of their own though they may have a small collection of books which is taken to meetings for use by local Members. Any research done by them has therefore to be carried out in local record offices and local studies libraries. This involves a journey, possibly a pre-booking, some expense and quite a lot of time. Occasionally a society may have indexes held by individuals and searched by them for a fee or it may undertake searches while an index is being compiled for publication.
Most research done by societies therefore involves a lot of personal effort.
Some societies have insufficient Membership in the area where research needs to be done and so limit their research service to the publication in their journal of research enquiries made by Members and do no personal research at all, not because they are unwilling but because they are unable. Some societies outside the UK have headquarters or libraries of their own where secondary sources such as indexes and published material of a specialist nature are made available. Not for them the long trek out into the cold to find an answer at a distant record office, though this too can happen, but a quick flick through an index or consultation of computer data will often answer the query they have been set. Research facilities vary from place to place and much depends on whether research needs to be done in original records or in secondary sources such as indexes and transcripts. Almost all family history society Members who may agree to take on such research are unpaid volunteers and as such cannot be expected to travel long distances or spend half their lives working on someone else's research however much they sympathise with the needs of the enquirer.