Ancestry publishing book on surname!!

[Jeanie with one n.]

Searching around on ancestry and came across the following on the Learning Center. A book on the Brewerton name in history. I am carrying out a one named study on this so clicked on the link to Amazon and saw that there were lots of similar books on different surnames.
Has anyone bought one on their family name and are they any good?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Be VERY wary!

A friend sent away for one - it may not have been the Ancestry one, to be fair.

It was £50 and consisted of a list of his names, from censuses, bmd indexes and current USA phone books and a bit of flim flam about the name generally.

As a genealogical tool it was utterly useless.

However, I have found some extremely useful and interesting surname books, usually in the library nearest the area, written by some earnest old Vicar and carefully researched and sourced.

OC

[Jeanie with one n.]

Thanks OC,
I was quite excited at first but when I saw the long list of books that ancestry had published became a bit suspicious.
Will do a bit of googeling and see if I can find any others.

[Anne in Carlisle]

My uncle once ordered a book called 'The Book of Pecks'. It was, as OC suggested just a list of easily compiled names with an American slant. They had listed my Uncle but not his brother (my Dad) who would have been equally easy to find. My Uncle just got it out of curiosity - no-one in the family was interested in FH then.

So you can imagine, when someone on GR said there was a book about the Pecks I was scornful. BUT NOT SO! .... this was a much more informative genealogical tome written about and including trees collected during the 1930s and 1940s. As it happened it did not include my family but that's beside the point.

The book was old and only available from Liverpool University library. Carlisle County Library Service borrowed it for me - great service!

Anne

[Jeanie with one n.]

Thank you for your input, Ann.
Do wonder what the ancestry book is like but not willing to spend $29.99 at the moment.
How is your one named study doing?
I am collecting USA info at the mo and have found a famous painter and a General in the war of Independence. No genetical connection of course.
Thanks again
Jeanie