If your curious about the kinds of things a county genealogy society can offer you, Ric Routledge wrote a great article in the The Star Press (Indiana) about the Jay County Genealogy Society.
Excerpt from the article:
The Jay County Genealogy Society’s office is indeed a popular place. Located at 109 S. Commerce St., it is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and is staffed by two paid part-timers and two volunteers. A few of its 450 nation-wide members are usually hanging about and there’s almost always someone from far away dropping by to see if anyone knows anything about his or her great-great-great-great aunt and, by the way, anybody interesting buried in your cemetery?
Most people don’t seem to care much about genealogy when they’re young, Hambrock said. But when they reach their 40s and 50s, then they get the bug to know about their ancestry after it’s too late to talk to their grandparents or even parents.
…..
Everybody has their own reason for tracking down their ancestry.It’s Katie Cue’s job to assist people who walk in the door seeking family history.
“Today we had three in here from California,” she said. “Some people plan their vacations around coming here. They usually find what they are looking for. Out-of-towners are very impressed with what they find here.
A good article on the popularity of genealogy in general, as well as just what you can find at a county genealogy society (although that’s going to vary wildly, because some genealogy societies are not nearly as big or organized – they mention they started out with a file cabinet and a couple of books just 10 years ago, and now have 10 rooms full of stuff).