More than 700 genealogy buffs from across the country will converge on Cape Girardeau this weekend with hopes of tracing family roots.

Researchers will meet at the Holiday Inn Convention Center Friday through Sunday.

The Friday evening reception is open to the public, said Diana Steele who is coordinating the research reunion.

The group traces its roots to a group of English Catholics who fled religious persecution in the 1600s and settled in Maryland. Eventually, members of the families went to Kentucky and Missouri.

A group of Catholics from Kentucky settled in Cape Girardeau in the early 1800s and helped establish Old St. Vincent's Church. Some of the family names associated with the group are Wathen, Mattingly, Abel, Hayden, Spalding, Miles, Hagen, Green, Calhoun, Knott, Fenwick, Thompson and Clark.

Over the years relatives doing genealogy research began writing each other.

Eight years ago, the first Maryland and Kentucky Catholic Reunion was held, and about 50 attended, Steele said. The meetings have been held every two years. The last was in 1992 in St. Marys County, Md., and over 600 people attended.

"I talked them into coming here for 1994," Steele said.