From AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES (2006) through the first season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS (2012), 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.
Joining Gates in this new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS will be a diverse group of guests, including Oscar winner Ben Affleck, award winning journalist Anderson Cooper, tennis great Billie Jean King, legendary author Stephen King, multi-platinum selling rapper Nas, and many more. With these guests and others, Gates continues his quest to understand our collective American identity, bringing to life the family histories of African American, Asian, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Latin American guests alike.
Share Your Story
Every family has a unique genealogical journey, just waiting to be unlocked. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. asks you to share your own story!
Over 10 episodes (Tuesdays, September 23 - November 26, 2014), the series will reveal rich family stories, tracing back to the subjects’ ancestors arrival on America’s shores, and beyond: deep into the history of their countries of origin. Each hour will highlight three guests bound together by an intimate, sometimes hidden link, as Gates treks through layers of ancestral history, uncovers secrets and surprises of their family trees and shares life-altering discoveries.
Episode Two: "Born Champions" airs Tuesday, September 30 at 8 p.m. - Three of America's greatest athletes whose determination and love of sports were deeply shaped by their families, but who were all cut off from their true origins.
Billie Jean King learns the true story of her grandmother, who had always kept the secret of her orphan birth. Derek Jeter confronts his own ancestors’ lives as slaves and discovers that they were owned by a white man named James Jeter - the source of the Jeter name and Derek's 3rd great-grandfather. Rebecca Lobo finds out that her Spanish ancestor fought side by side with a famous revolutionary and was forced to flee Spain because of his democratic ideals.
All are also reunited with the foundation of their American roots through the stories of immigrant ancestors who courageously set out across the Atlantic to build a new life.
NEXT WEEK: "Our American Storytellers" episode features Ken Burns, Anderson Cooper and Anna Deavere Smith.
Miss the series premiere "In Search Of Our Fathers"? Watch it below or on the series website.
FINDING YOUR ROOTS is on Facebook, and you can follow @HenryLouisGates on Twitter. You can follow @BillieJeanKing on Twitter. Derek Jeter is on Facebook. Follow @RebeccaLobo on Twitter.
Born Champions Promo
"Three of America's greatest athletes whose determination and love of sports were deeply shaped by their families
Our American Storytellers Promo
Three iconic American storytellers who have spent their lives chronicling the lives of others all the while knowing almost nothing about their own family history.
In Search of Our Fathers
Stephen King’s father walked out on the family when Stephen was two years old and never returned; Courtney B. Vance’s father was a foster child and never knew who his biological parents were and Gloria Reuben’s father was 78 years old when she was born — he died when she was young. Henry Louis Gates solves the mystery of their paternal ancestry and introduces them to relatives they never knew.
