Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck (pronounced Buckstrup) was born in Vandalia, Fayette County, Illinois on 26 May 1945. His own ancestry stems from Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, and up the East Coast through Maryland to New England. His heritage is rooted in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Germany.
He has been a scholar and a teacher for most of his adult life, garnering his baccalaureate degree in biology (Beta Beta Beta honor society) and history (Phi Alpha Theta honors), cum laude from Greenville College, Greenville, Illinois in 1967, followed by an M.A. in European history in 1969 from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (Phi Kappa Phi honor society), and an M.S. in library science in 1973 from the University of Illinois, Urbana (Beta Phi Mu honor society). He earned a certificate from the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, in 1973 as well.
Mr. Bockstruck was a graduate assistant at two different universities, and taught high school in Kenya for the Missionary Journeyman Program of the Foreign Mission Program of the Southern Baptist Convention all before 1971. He served as an instructor in the School of Continuing Education for Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas for nearly 20 years, from 1974-1991. He is on the faculty of the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research still, having begun in 1974. He joined the faculty of the Genealogical Institute of Mid-America, at the University of Illinois at Springfield, in 1994, and continues in that capacity.
As a librarian, Mr. Bockstruck has also enjoyed success in his field. He joined the staff of the Dallas Public Library in 1973, and is presently Supervisor of the Genealogy Section. He served on the Genealogy Committee of the American Library Association as early as 1974, and is a life member. Last year he was awarded the prestigious Filby Prize for Genealogical Librarianship.
He is an Honorary Life Member of the Dallas Genealogical Society, having been on its Board of Directors since 1979. He writes a weekly genealogy column for the Dallas Morning News called “Family Tree”, which is well received.
Our speaker is a widely traveled man as well as being beautifully educated. He has traveled extensively in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Mexico and North America. Not only has he visited 41 of the 50 U.S. states, but he has spoken in many of them!
Mr. Bockstruck first addressed the National Genealogical Society at its Diamond Jubilee in 1978. He has since spoken at every one of its annual conferences since 1983 except 1993 and 2000. He has been featured at five annual conferences of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. In 1993 and 1995 he was guest lecturer at BYU’s Genealogy and Family History Conference. He is well versed in the research skills, records, tools and activities that are part of family history research. We are both lucky and delighted to welcome Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck to Monterey!
Contact Ivan Miller at milleriw@mbay.net