Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr: John Legend, Wanda Sykes and Margarett Cooper

The basic drive to discover who we are and where we come from is at the core of the new 10-part PBS series FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., the 12th series from Professor Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Filmed on location across the United States, the series premieres nationally Sundays, March 25 through May 20, 2012 at 8 p.m.

The series features Kevin Bacon, Cory Booker, Angela Buchdal, Geoffrey Canada, Margaret Cho, Harry Connick Jr., Robert Downey Jr., Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Samuel L. Jackson, John Legend, John Lewis, Branford Marsalis, Yasir Qadhi, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Rodriguez, Kyra Sedgwick, Wanda Sykes, Ruth Simmons, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters and Rick Warren.

"John Legend, Wanda Sykes and Margarett Cooper" - 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.

FINDING YOUR ROOTS is on Facebook.