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Finding Your Roots

20121h 0m / epDocumentary

First aired

March 24, 2012

6.5

TMDB Score

65% match · 20 votes

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S01 · E09

John Legend and Wanda Sykes

Season 1 · May 13, 2012 · 1h 0m

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E01▶

Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.

Mar 24, 2012 · 1h 0m

E02▶

John Lewis and Cory Booker

Mar 24, 2012 · 1h 0m

E03▶

Barbara Walters and Geoffrey Canada

Apr 1, 2012 · 1h 0m

E04▶

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon

Apr 7, 2012 · 1h 0m

E05▶

Rick Warren, Angela Buchdahl and Yasir Qadhi

Apr 14, 2012 · 1h 0m

E06▶

Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal

Apr 28, 2012 · 1h 0m

E07▶

Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Ruth Simmons

Apr 29, 2012 · 1h 0m

E08▶

Martha Stewart, Margaret Cho and Sanjay Gupta

May 6, 2012 · 1h 0m

E09Playing

John Legend and Wanda Sykes

May 13, 2012 · 1h 0m

E10▶

Adrian Grenier, Michelle Rodriguez and Linda Chavez

May 20, 2012 · 1h 0m

Most African Americans struggle to trace their ancestors beyond Emancipation; slavery erased names and family ties with brutal efficiency. But what about the descendants of the handful of free black people who evaded bondage during that terrible time? Musician John Legend and comedian Wanda Sykes discover the extraordinary stories of the free black ancestors they never knew about, while Professor Gates himself and his 98-year-old friend Margarett Cooper delve into the mysteries shrouding the free people of color in their family trees.

About the Series

Documentary

Synopsis

Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.

First aired: March 24, 2012
Last aired: April 14, 2026
Seasons: 12 seasons · 126 episodes
Status: Returning Series
Original language: English
Network: PBS