A genealogy Web site has taken a bold step in exposing the details of the British slave trade by publishing a list of Barbados slaves.

Ancestry.co.uk is a site that allows users to research their family history. This new list will allow descendants of slaves taken to Barbados to trace their ancestors back to their enslavement.

The list, known as the Barbados Slave Register for 1834, has almost 100,000 names of slaves and their owners who worked in the former British colonial dependency.

Barbados was a key location for sugar production in the 18th and 19th centuries, and as such was the destination of many slaves brought from Africa to harvest the cane. There are therefore a great number of people descended from these generations of slaves.

The full set of records, known as the "Former British Colonial Dependencies' Slave Register Collection, 1812-1834" gives an indication of the number of slaves working in various parts of the empire.

Mia Morris, founder of the blackhistory-month.co.uk Web site responded the publication, calling it "terrific", saying that the records "provide a much needed piece in the puzzle for those of us wanting to find the truth about our ancestors."

The original article was written by Peter Sorel-Cameron.