About this season
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.
Episodes (10)
1. The Impression
Aired 2 October 2017 • 60 min
Join Larry David and Bernie Sanders, who learn they have more in common than they thought.
2. Unfamiliar Kin
Aired 10 October 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Carly Simon, Christopher Walken, and more. In this episode, three guests each learn about a grandparent whose real identity and background had been a mystery to them. Along the way, two of them also discover that their close relatives were on the wrong side of history.
3. Puritans and Pioneers
Aired 17 October 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and William H. Macy. Three mainstays of modern-day Hollywood discover family legacies that predate the United States itself.
4. The Vanguard
Aired 24 October 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ava DuVernay and Janet Mock. Three guests who have helped to redefine Black America in the last decade find their identities challenged as they learn about their family origins.
5. Immigrant Nation
Aired 31 October 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd and John Turturro. In this episode, three guests explore the tremendous challenges faced by their immigrant forebears.
6. Black Like Me
Aired 7 November 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Bryant Gumbel, Tonya Lewis-Lee and Suzanne Malveaux. Three African-American guests delve deep into their family trees, discovering unexpected stories that challenge our assumptions about black history.
7. Children of the Revolution
Aired 14 November 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Lupita Nyong’o, Carmelo Anthony and Ana Navarro. Three guests explore how their family trees were shaped by political turmoil and violence, discovering sometimes unexpected ancestry along the way.
8. Relatives We Never Knew We Had
Aired 21 November 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Gaby Hoffmann and Téa Leoni. Two guests whose lives have been shaped by family mysteries are introduced to biological ancestors they never knew they had thanks to genetic detective work.
9. Southern Roots
Aired 12 December 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Questlove, Dr. Phil and Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Three guests of disparate backgrounds dig into their Southern roots, where slavery and its aftermath shaped families both black and white.
10. Funny Business
Aired 19 December 2017 • 60 min
Guests: Amy Schumer and more. Guests who have found fame mining their family stories for comedy learn about ancestors who overcame immense suffering.