PROVO — Ancestry.com has added a new records collection to its portfolio — one that will both help families with genealogy searches and bust misperceptions that few historical records exist for African-Americans.

The company is saying the collection, launched online this week at www.ancestry.com/aahistory, is the largest collection of African-American family history records that is available and searchable online. During February, the company is allowing people to search the collection and get free access to Ancestry.com for three days.

"The power and depth of this collection speaks directly to the misperceptions of black family research, offering hope that transcends time and inspires every generation," Tim Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, said in a prepared statement.

"One of our youngest customers, 15-year-old Jari Honora from New Orleans, has traced his Creole family tree to 1801, and many others are finding that tracing their family trees is possible."

Representing the 19th and early 20th century, the collection has more than 55 million records. Portions come from Census records; military service records, such as World War I draft cards and U.S. Colored Troops service records from the Civil War; the Slave Narratives, derived from interviews of more than 3,500 former slaves; Freedmen's Bank Records; Freedmen's Bureau Records; and Freedmen's Bureau Marriage Records. It also includes historical photos, and Southern Claims Commission Records will soon be added.

About 53 million African-American records are in the Census collection, which includes 1790 to 1930. About 4.9 million African-Americans are in the 1870 Census — the first to list former slaves by name — and almost 12 million are in the 1930 version.

The Census collection can be searched with a new filter that identifies African-American entries.

The collection includes information about Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, as well as ancestors of James Earl Jones, Denzel Washington, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Maya Angelou.

Tony Burroughs, African-American family historian and author of "Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree," said in a prepared statement that the collection "is a major breakthrough that opens the gateway for African-Americans everywhere to dig deeper into the lives of their ancestors via the Internet."

"Though black family history still presents a unique set of challenges," he said, "this collection is a major stepping stone that makes African-American genealogy resources more accessible and illuminates the legacies of past generations for us to celebrate today."

Ancestry.com has 23,000 searchable databases and titles that contain more than 5 billion names. It had more than 4 million unique site visitors and 295 million page views in November.

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