Nearly 4 Million Records of Enslaved People Made Searchable Online

Nearly four million records documenting the lives of enslaved people across 20 former British colonies have been made freely searchable online for the first time, marking one of the largest digitisation efforts of its kind.

The collection, spanning some 300,000 pages, was digitised and indexed by the genealogy company Ancestry in partnership with the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London. The records cover countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad.

A resource for descendants and researchers

The newly searchable archive is expected to serve as a significant resource for descendants of enslaved people seeking to trace family histories, as well as for historians and researchers studying the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies across the former British Empire.

By making the material searchable online, the project removes a major barrier that had previously required researchers to sift through physical archives or fragmented records held in different institutions and countries. The partnership between Ancestry and UCL's Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery reflects a broader push by academic and genealogical institutions to widen public access to historical records tied to slavery.

The scale of the collection underscores the vast administrative record-keeping that accompanied slavery across British colonial territories, much of which has remained difficult to access until now. Organisers of the project say the digitisation effort is intended to support both personal genealogical research and wider historical scholarship into the era.