Owen-TV: Celebrities trace their genealogy on ‘Finding Your Roots’
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PASADENA, Calif. – In 2006, four years before the debut of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?,” PBS and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. debuted a prime-time show about genealogy, “African-American Lives.”
The latest iteration of that show, “Finding Your Roots,” premieres Sunday on PBS at 8 p.m. EDT with back-to-back episodes. Each of the series’ 10, one-hour episodes features two celebrities tracing their genealogy.
In Sunday’s 8 p.m. episode, it’s musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis; at 9 p.m., it’s two political figures: Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. Other public figures featured in upcoming episodes include Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, Condoleezza Rice, Rick Warren, Samuel L. Jackson, Sanjay Gupta, Robert Downey Jr., Martha Stewart and Wanda Sykes.
“We found some amazing things,” Gates said in January during a PBS press conference. “Robert Downey Jr., we traced his ancestry back to his 18th great-grandfather … who was born in 1397 in Switzerland. And Barbara Walters, we found her original name. She had no idea her genealogy had been done. It was full of mistakes. She thought her name was Abramovich, and it turns out her original name is Waremwasser.”
Gates said his interest in genealogy began on July 3, 1960, when his family gathered to bury his grandfather, who had light-colored skin.
“He was so white, we called him ‘Casper’ behind his back,” Gates said. “So you can imagine how white he looked dead. I was standing there at his open casket, holding my father’s hand, and looking at my grandfather, and I was captivated by how white he was and where that whiteness came from. And the next day, I bought a composition book, and I went home, and I interviewed my parents about their family trees. And I have been obsessed with genealogy since that day.”
His interest in genealogy re-emerged with the debut of the landmark miniseries “Roots” in 1977. His ability to trace people’s family histories became easier with advances in DNA analysis after 2000.
“I want everybody to have their family tree done through this series so Americans can realize how united we are as a people,” Gates said, noting he hopes the series can serve as a salve on the current, polarized political climate. He begins Sunday night’s first episode on the ancestries of Connick and Marsalis by noting that their ancestors were divided by war but they forged a friendship with their shared love of music. “One of the things that I want the series to do, my subtext, is to show that, deep down, we are all Americans. We’ve been sleeping together from the very beginning of the country.”
Gates said he has watched NBC’s show, which was based on a British series that pre-dates Gates’ programs, but he said the structure of the shows is different. “Who Do You Think You Are?” has no host or narrator, and the celebrity whose genealogy is being traced travels the country in the course of the episode.
“Nobody who’s ever been on my series would ever have agreed to that,” he said, smiling. “You know, it’s hard enough to get them to agree. Usually, we have to lie to them and say that the whole reveal is going to take an hour because we’re dealing with their handler. Can you imagine Barbara Walters or Oprah giving somebody three hours for an interview? They just don’t do that, right?”
Gates said no one who has agreed to be on his genealogy shows has quit the series once filming began. But he has had a few folks change their minds in advance.
“At 7:22 one Sunday night, Colin Powell emailed me and said, ‘I’m in the series,’ ” Gates recalled. “At 7:26 I got another email saying, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I have too many cousins already.’ “
Gates laughed as he retold that story, but it’s clear his passion for genealogy is real.
“For me, being able to introduce people to their ancestors is one of the greatest gifts that my career has given me,” he said, “and it’s full of surprises.”
(Follow TV writer Rob Owen on Twitter or Facebook under RobOwenTV. Email him at owenr(at)shns.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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