Historians estimate that 12.5 million people crossed the Atlantic from Africa as part of the slave trace. A new, free web database called Voyages might be able to help you find your African ancestors.

Voyages, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, was just launched on December 5, 2008. It has “information on almost 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It offers researchers, students, and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history.”

On the website you can:

• Search the Voyages Database: Look for particular voyages in this database of documented slaving expeditions. Create listings, tables, charts, and maps using information from the database.
• Examine Estimates of the Slave Trade: Slaves on documented voyages represent four-fifths of the number who were actually transported. Use the interactive estimates page to analyze the full volume and multiple routes of the slave trade.
• Explore the African Names Database: This database identifies over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation.

Special features on the site include introductory maps and a timeline/chronology.