Join voyage of discovery to track down ancestors

It is the stumbling block that can floor the most meticulous of amateur genealogists trying to trace a family tree — the discovery that a descendant may have left Britain for a life abroad, apparently never to be heard from again.

But now the mystery surrounding distant relatives who emigrated can be solved with the aid of a database of more than 30 million ship passengers who left British ports.

From today the list, which gives details of every person on a long-haul voyage from Britain after the 1890s, will allow their descendants to trace the journeys on the internet.