Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck (1945–2018)

Just five chapters long, the first chapter is the Introduction and the last chapter is the two page Bibliography. The intervening chapters are Forenames, Surnames and Toponyms (that last one also just two pages long). The writing is choppy, quickly jumping from one topic to another with almost no citation of sources. No subject is covered in depth.

The one time Bockstruck does expand upon a subject, he spends four pages listing details of a particular man's life only to come to this not so surprising conclusion: "His paper trail revealed that Pennybaker was also spelled Pennabaker." [p. 55] While discussing common Spanish naming practices, he states that the letter y, as in Perez y Blanco, is a symbol or character. [p. 76] Actually it is the Spanish word for "and" which links the parents' surnames. The statement "It was considered patriotic for an American to hire a substitute to take his place in military service from the colonial era to the Civil War" [p. 45] is also problematic. It was a way to avoid conscription. Such errors call into doubt the reliability of other assertions.

There are a number of typesetting errors, apparently carried over from the uncorrected proof, which should have been caught. The book is small and the top and bottom margins measure more than an inch. The title appears on each page but is only offset from the main text by one blank line which sometimes gives the impression of the beginning of a new paragraph. There is no index. This slim volume is only 85 pages long and thus expensive. Recommend only borrowing from a library rather than purchasing.
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Very informative by the always excellent Mr. Bockstruck with helpful sources in the introduction, which is every bit as interesting as the rest of the book. I have dog-eared so many pages for further research, the book is twice as thick as it was. The introduction should be required reading for anyone who claims even a passing interest in genealogy. I learned that one ancestor who was born in this country might not have been a citizen due to the stringent laws of the day. My only other desire (for the full five star rating) would be a reference section for different states as to dates, and the privileges that citizenship conferred, as well as reminding readers again that women did not usually become naturalized citizens since it did not benefit them to do so: They could not own property in their own right or vote.… (más)