In celebration of black history month, Ancestry has also released some new records. You can check out African Amercian records here http://landing.ancestry.com/aahistory/default.aspx. These records include slave narratives, US Colored Troops records, Freedmen's Bureau records, Freedman's Bank records, books, WWI draft cards and a large amount of photos.

Records to be added in the near future include Freedmen's Bureau Marriage records and Southern Claims Commission Records.

If you have African American roots you should check out this site as well as www.familyseach.org who also have a large collection of African American records online (as well as their Family History Library Catalog with access to many more records on films through the FamilyHistory Centers).

Downing Street is offering a petition for people to sign, which would reduce the census release period from 100 years to 70 years, thus making the 1911, 1921 and 1931 censuses available immediately. If you would like to add your name, please click on this link:

Note: You must be a British citizen or expatriate.

For info, the URL to go directly to the petition is :http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/CensusInfoFreed/

Now that Ancestry.com has introduced a variety of German records, they have launched the German or Deutsch version of their site at http://www.ancestry.de/. The site is in German and is designed to assist Germans (and other Eastern Europeans) in their family history research. It should be noted that Germany's borders have moved multiple times, especially in early 1900s, and records may be found relating to places and individuals residing in countries other than modern Germany.

Also new is the Australian version of the site at http://www.ancestry.com.au/. Databases include those specifically Australian, convict records, and UK records.

CBC News announced a new website listing 30 million ship passengers who left Britain 1890-1960 http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/. The site has digitized copies of an estimated 1.2 million travel documents listing names and destinations that were only available through the National Archives in Britain. Currently only 1890-1899 records have been posted to the site but it is hoped that this will be expanded up to 1920 by the end of 2007.

These records also include the infamous “Home Children” who were sent overseas, often without their parents or relatives knowledge/consent, to become farm hands or servants.

You can read the full article here.

Ancestry.com has just released a database of 2.5 million names from the Hamburg passenger lists 1850-1934. Hamburg was a main port of exit for many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Germany coming to North America. This is the first time that this database has been made publicly available on the Internet.

However, it should be noted that only the years 1890-1913 have been indexed so far even though all of the images for 1850-1934 are available. If you do not find your ancestor in a search by name, try browsing the images by year. It should also be noted that these records are in German.