By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – It will soon be easier for St. Louis-area residents to look up long-lost ancestors.
The St. Louis Genealogical Society has catalogued more than 93,000 naturalization records dating from 1816 to 1906.
The society's Ted Steele says the immigration records were originally compiled as part of a Depression-era work project but were not organized well.
"The work we've done so far is just creating the master set of the physical cards," Steele said. "So what's going to happen now is we're going to take that set of cards and our volunteers will now key that data into a database."
Among the more famous St. Louisans in the list are Joseph Pulitzer and Adolphus Busch.
Steele says the Genealogical Society should have the database on its website by the end of the year.