A United Kingdom-based website is to publish a list of slave names that will allow Jamaicans to trace their ancestry back to pre-emancipation days.

The website, www.ancestry.co.uk, yesterday launched a list for Barbados, which is based on an 1834 registerof 100,000 slaves - a quarter of them aged under 10 years old - and 5,000 slave owners.

The Jamaican list will follow in the coming months, said spokesman Simon Ziviani. The island is among 23 countries covered by 700 registers which recorded the names of slaves before slavery was finally ended in the British colonies in 1834 (the 1807 Abolition of Slavery Act, which is currently being commemorated, merely outlawed the transport of slaves on British ships).

Important collection

"It's an important collection and is a very complete collection," said Mr. Ziviani. "Also, being the 200th year of the abolition of slavery (sic) we wanted to start a black history collection and nobody was doing this."

Users will have to pay a monthly subscription of 25 or a yearly fee of 150. Mr. Ziviani cautioned that people will need to be prepared with as much information as possible about their family background prior to searching, to maximise their chances of tracing enslaved ancestors.

Parliamentarians recently revisited the issue of reparations for slavery. A remembrance service was held on Wednesday at Kingston Harbour, where ships once unloaded slaves from West Africa.