Titanic's passenger list online

On the 95th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic, a genealogy Web site yesterday posted copies of the doomed ocean liner's one-and-only passenger list, the first time the roster has been made available outside the U.K.'s national archives.

For the next week, Findmypast.com will offer free viewing of the digitized list, which records the names, port of departure, occupation, nationality, age, class of travel, destination and country of intended residence of those who sailed from Portsmouth, England, and Queensland, Ireland (now Cobh in County Cork), on April 10 and 11, 1912.

Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, and went down early in the morning of April 15 with a loss of approximately 1,500 lives.

The passenger names were recorded on 34 handwritten pages that are currently stored at the National Archives in Kew, London -- the same repository where the famous Domesday Book is kept. Among those who booked passage but didn't survive the sinking: American minister Robert Bateman, 52, who conducted a church service in second class hours before the Titanic struck the iceberg, and John Astor, 48, millionaire heir to the Astor fortune.

Findmypast.com requires that users register to view the free-of-charge Titanic lists.