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Published: January 7, 2009
In a major advance in genealogical research, African-Americans will be able to trace the routes of slave ships that transported 12.5 million of their ancestors from Africa as early as the 16th century. The free Internet database gives African-Americans the opportunity for the first time to explore their African heritage the way whites have long been able to chart their migration.
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database www.slavevoyages.org is the result of 40 years of research by hundreds of scholars. Two years ago, Emory University researchers, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, began compiling maps, images and other records of about 35,000 slave-trade voyages from Africa to North America, Brazil, the Caribbean and Europe. It is the first time such a large amount of data on the subject has been available to the public.
McClatchy-Tribune
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The Voyages database, which is expected to become a classroom tool, contains the records of 10.5 million slaves, more than 85 percent of the slave trade. It identifies more than 67,000 of them by their African name, age, sex, origin and place of embarkation.
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