Plot

Before the popularity of AncestryDNA, journalist and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr. divulges the family trees of various celebrities, many times with stunning revelations.

Harvard educator Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosts this enlightening PBS series that examines "the DNA of American culture" through an extensive discovery of the ancestors of today's celebrities. In each episode, a set of featured guests view their ancestral histories, learn connections, and discover secrets about their lineage, while sharing the emotional experience with viewers. Gates guides them as they see results and details derived from the background work competed by expert genealogical diagnosticians, who have analyzed genetic code and traced bloodlines that leads to documentation and the occasional confirmation or debunking of long-held beliefs. A variety of guests have included musicians, authors, chefs, and more. Actors who've made an appearance include Julianna Marguiles, Stephen King, Ben Affleck, Sally Field, Mia Farrow, Anderson Cooper, and many others.—writermaia

The diverse American experience as it relates to race, culture, and identity is the focus of Finding Your Roots. Presented by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., this 10 episode series continues the quest begun in African American Lives 1 and 2 and Faces of America and carries it to an entirely new level. Each hour features a different pair of celebrity guests, who are bound together by an intimate, sometimes hidden, link whether it be as old friends, through long lost relatives, or a common past.