Finding Your Roots (2012)
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.
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Episode 1 - Hidden Kin
Release Date: 2023-01-03Henry Louis Gates explores the remarkable roots of actors Edward Norton and Julia Roberts—using DNA analysis and genealogical detective work to travel generations into the past, tracing lineages that run from Northern Europe to the American South. Along the way, Norton and Roberts reimagine their family stories and discover their hidden connections to our nation’s history—and each other.
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Episode 2 - Salem's Lot
Release Date: 2023-01-10Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes actors Claire Danes and Jeff Daniels on a journey into their roots, uncovering primal scenes from our nation’s past, featuring World War One battles, Civil War prison camps, and America’s most infamous witch hunt.
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Episode 3 - Secret Lives
Release Date: 2023-01-17Henry Louis Gates, Jr. helps comedians Carol Burnett and Niecy Nash decode scandals hidden within their roots, exposing secrets that their ancestors concealed and celebrating the virtue of accepting one’s relatives—whoever they may be.
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Episode 4 - Far From Home
Release Date: 2023-01-24Henry Louis Gates, Jr. maps the family trees of pop icon Cyndi Lauper and actors Jamie Chung and Danny Trejo, exploring records in Italy, Korea, and Mexico to uncover ancestors whose stories were lost when their families immigrated to America.
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Episode 5 - Rising From the Ashes
Release Date: 2023-01-31Henry Louis Gates, Jr. traces the roots of actors Brian Cox and Viola Davis, uncovering records from workhouses in Scotland and slave plantations in South Carolina that reveal individuals who battled to build a better life for their families.
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Episode 6 - Family: Lost and Found
Release Date: 2023-02-07Henry Louis Gates, Jr. uses DNA detective work to solve family mysteries for actor Joe Manganiello and football star Tony Gonzalez—uncovering close relatives whose names they’ve never heard and compelling each man to rethink his own identity.
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Episode 7 - Chosen
Release Date: 2023-02-14Henry Louis Gates helps actors David Duchovny and Richard Kind trace their roots from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe to the United States—telling stories of triumph and tragedy that laid the groundwork for his guest’s success.
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Episode 8 - And Still I Rise
Release Date: 2023-02-21Henry Louis Gates, Jr. reveals the unexpected family trees of activist Angela Y. Davis and statesman Jeh Johnson, using DNA and long-lost records to redefine notions of the black experience—and challenge preconceptions of America’s past.
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Episode 9 - Anchormen
Release Date: 2023-03-28Henry Louis Gates, Jr. introduces trail-blazing journalists Jim Acosta and Van Jones to the ancestors who blazed a trail for them, meeting runaway slaves and immigrant settlers who took enormous chances so that their descendants might thrive.
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Episode 10 - Out of the Past
Release Date: 2023-04-04Henry Louis Gates, Jr. uncovers the lost roots of actors Billy Crudup and Tamera Mowry-Housley, traveling back generations to recount significant events in history—from the American Revolution to the journey of the Mayflower—in a deeply personal way.