Henry Louis Gates Jr. goes from host to guest on PBS' 'Finding Your
Roots'
[April 08, 2025]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — For 11 seasons, Henry Louis Gates Jr. has sat across
from his guests on the popular PBS series “Finding Your Roots” and led
them through secrets in their family tree. On Tuesday, it's his turn.
The Harvard scholar learns a long-buried puzzle about his great-great
grandmother, Jane Gates, information which scrambles his ancestry and
opens up a new branch that goes back to Ireland.
“I was moved to tears,” Gates tells The Associated Press ahead of the
airing. “I used to pass her grave at the Gates' plot in Rose Hill
Cemetery and I would say, ‘Grandma, I’m going to out you. I’m going to
tell the world your secret.’”
“Finding Your Roots” is PBS’s most-watched program on linear TV and the
most-streamed non-drama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million
people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first
Emmy nomination.
“The two subliminal messages of ’Finding Your Roots,' which are needed
more urgently today than ever, is that what has made America great is
that we’re a nation of immigrants," says Gates. “And secondly, at the
level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we’re
99.99% the same.”
Season 11 secrets
Season 11 has featured Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, Melanie Lynskey,
chef Jose Andres, Sharon Stone and Amanda Seyfried, who learned why her
paternal third-great-grandfather was murdered.
Gates shares the last episode with Laurence Fishburne, who learns the
identity of his biological father. It turns out both men adored jazz,
which delighted Dyllan McGee, who helped create and produce “Finding
Your Roots.”
“It underscored how family connections can shape us, even unknowingly,
and made me wonder if reconnecting with our past somehow affirms the
significance of our own stories by showing us how much each individual
on our tree shapes us even when we don’t know it,” she says.
How it started
The series started in 2006 under the title “African American Lives,”
conceived by Gates in the middle of the night in his bathroom. He
invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into
slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which
ethnic group they were from in Africa.
Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates
agreed and the series was renamed “Faces of America,” which had to be
changed again after the name was taken. Along the way, Gates had a crash
course in DNA.
“For a guy with a PhD in English literature, I think I can do pretty
well on the AP genetics exam,” he says, before proving it with a
thorough explanation of autosomal DNA.
Over the years, the show has delivered fascinating results, like when
Natalie Morales discovered she’s related to one of the legendary pirates
of the Caribbean and when former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg
found his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that
RuPaul and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker are cousins, as are Meryl Streep and
Eva Longoria.
[to top of second column]
|
This image released by PBS shows actor Laurence Fishburne, left,
with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the series “Finding Your
Roots." (PBS via AP)
 Guests have included former U.S.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi
Gabbard, designer Diane von Furstenberg and “Game of Thrones” author
George R. R. Martin.
“I always tell my guests that you’re not responsible for the crazy
things your ancestors did. I don’t care what they did. Guilt is not
inheritable,” Gates says. “You have to understand how the people
functioned in the past without judging them.”
A kernel of truth
He and his team — particularly genetic genealogist CeCe Moore — have
found that traditional family stories passed down through the
generations are often filled with a few lies, often to cover up bad
behavior.
“I call it where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The stories are never
accurate, but they’re often close,” says Gates. “There is a kernel
of truth there.”
It took researchers four years to resolve the mystery of who was
Gates' great-great grandfather, the man who impregnated Jane Gates.
The story she told about her children's father turned out to be not
correct.
The researchers show him an 1888 obituary for her and a 1839 ad for
her sale. Gates comments that he’s seen a thousand bill of sales
like it, but this hit differently. At the end, he looks again at a
photo of Jane Gates. “I see a lot of pain in those eyes and now I
know why.”
“Something changed for him that day," says McGee. "I remember him
calling me after the reveal saying, 'That was the best day of my
life!' It was such a treat for the entire team to be able to give
him the gift of a missing link in his family history that he has
given hundreds of our guests.”
Gates is a huge advocate that everyone should have their family tree
traced and pushes back against the idea that digging up the past is
divisive.
“I believe that knowing about our ancestors is fundamental to
knowing about ourselves,” he says. “The only way to deal with the
past is to know about the past.”
“In terms of people who would pretend that the past is irrelevant
and we need to look forward, William Faulkner wrote, ‘The past is
never dead. It’s not even past,’” Gates adds. “It’s still with us,
shaping both who we are and the society and our norms under which we
function.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
