Missouri’s wealth came out of the ground and off the river, and out of its German brewhouses.
The people in this story fill our public-record database. Search a surname and filter to Missouri.
Search Missouri records →The oldest mines in the Midwest
Lead has been mined in eastern Missouri since French colonial days in the early 1700s, and the “Old Lead Belt” around Bonne Terre and Flat River made Missouri one of the world’s leading lead producers, drawing miners into company towns south of St. Louis.
The brewing capital of the West
German immigrants made St. Louis a brewing powerhouse — Anheuser-Busch grew into the largest brewery in the world, and the city’s beer gardens and brewhouses defined its German character.
Gateway on the rivers
At the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi, St. Louis was the gateway to the West — outfitting wagon trains, steamboats, and railroads — while the river trade built fortunes up and down the state.
Finding your Missouri ancestors
- Company, union, and census occupation records tie a family to this industry — start with the occupation column and the local company’s payroll and union rolls.
- Census records (free through 1950) list occupation and residence — placing your family in a specific Missouri county and town, decade by decade.
- Death & cemetery records — search our Missouri database for the people in this story and the generations around them.
- The Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City holds the deeper collections — company, church, military, and county records.
- Newspapers on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America carried the obituaries, accidents, and milestones of these communities.
We work back from you to the ancestor who lived this history — census, vital, church, and cemetery records, written into a book and an interactive family site. Flat rate, no DNA test.
See how it works →Frequently asked questions
How old is lead mining in Missouri?
Very old — the French mined Missouri lead in the early 1700s, and the eastern Missouri “Lead Belt” later made the state a world leader in lead production.
Why was St. Louis famous for beer?
German immigrants built major breweries there, and Anheuser-Busch grew into the largest brewing company in the world.