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Prepare to uncover some of the most heartbreaking and shocking family revelations ever revealed on “Finding Your Roots.” From stories of survival and resilience to painful truths about slavery, war, and loss, these celebrity discoveries offer a powerful glimpse into history's darkest chapters. Join us as we explore how stars like Maya Rudolph, Nas, Kristen Bell, and more confronted their hidden pasts. Which story moved you the most?
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00:00:00Genuinely, no.
00:00:03Um, just what a terrifying time.
00:00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:00:07And today, we're counting down our picks
00:00:10for the most shocking, heartbreaking,
00:00:11and genuinely hard-to-process discoveries
00:00:14celebrities made on Finding Your Roots.
00:00:17This is too much.
00:00:20Number 50, Brian Cox.
00:00:22For most of his life, Brian Cox only knew one thing
00:00:25about his maternal grandfather, James McCann.
00:00:28The man had a reputation as a drunk.
00:00:31I mean, apparently, he was a drunk, he drank,
00:00:33and I think it all makes sense.
00:00:36It just makes sense.
00:00:38And he, I mean, he didn't live very long.
00:00:39He died at the age of 50.
00:00:41So he didn't live long.
00:00:43But Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his team dug deeper
00:00:46and found something that reframed everything.
00:00:49McCann had served in the Black Watch,
00:00:51the Royal Highlanders Regiment,
00:00:53on the front lines in France during World War I.
00:00:55Now, I'm sure you've heard on the infamous Western Front.
00:00:59Yeah, yeah.
00:01:00But did you realize that your grandfather had served there?
00:01:02No, I had no idea.
00:01:04How would you have fared?
00:01:07How would you process that experience?
00:01:09Yeah.
00:01:10No.
00:01:11No.
00:01:12We were spared that.
00:01:13During this period, he endured artillery fire,
00:01:17flooded trenches, and gas attacks.
00:01:19He was hospitalized after a gas attack
00:01:22and suffered respiratory problems for the rest of his life.
00:01:25Cox called learning this information
00:01:27incredibly moving and validating.
00:01:29The man who was mostly known as a drunk was, in truth,
00:01:32a war-damaged veteran who simply never recovered.
00:01:35It's relieving, actually,
00:01:37because it's like a ghost has been laid for a while, finally.
00:01:42Oh, good.
00:01:43You know, that hadn't been laid, you know,
00:01:46that had been so debatable.
00:01:50Number 49.
00:01:52Melissa McCarthy.
00:01:53What do you know about your roots in Scotland?
00:01:55Nothing.
00:01:56And nothing about the family your grandfather left behind?
00:01:59No, not a thing.
00:02:01Or if there was ever contact, ever again.
00:02:04Mm-hmm.
00:02:04I've asked my dad, and he said he has no idea.
00:02:07Everything Melissa McCarthy thought she knew
00:02:09about her grandfather's origins turned out to be only half the story.
00:02:13She'd always been told her paternal grandfather,
00:02:15Michael Carty, was Scottish.
00:02:17Gates' researchers uncovered that his family
00:02:20actually originated in Ireland before relocating to Scotland.
00:02:24So he was an Irish immigrant to Scotland.
00:02:27I think my dad has said that.
00:02:29Mm-hmm.
00:02:29He said he moved from Scotland, but they were Irish.
00:02:33And I was like, do you know that for sure?
00:02:36And it's always been a little, like, confusing.
00:02:39And there it is.
00:02:40Then came the gut punch.
00:02:42Census and death records revealed that when Michael was just six years old,
00:02:46his father Thomas Carty died of pneumonia at 45,
00:02:50after working grueling hours in an ironworks.
00:02:53He left behind a widow and seven children, all under 15.
00:02:57That childhood loss explained so much,
00:03:00including why McCarthy's own father never spoke about his grandfather.
00:03:04The little ones wouldn't even have known him at all,
00:03:06which maybe is why we don't.
00:03:08Absolutely.
00:03:08That is why my dad doesn't have the story to tell me,
00:03:12because his father didn't even know his own father.
00:03:15Number 48, Nas.
00:03:17In this season two episode, Gates presented rapper Nas
00:03:20with an 1859 bill of sale documenting the purchase
00:03:24of his third great-grandmother, Pocahontas Little, for $830.
00:03:29She was between 14 and 15 years old at the time.
00:03:33See, this is painful now.
00:03:34This is like, to see that, it's like, that hurts.
00:03:38Yeah.
00:03:39Gates then showed Nas a photograph of Benjamin Franklin Little,
00:03:43the white plantation owner who enslaved his ancestors.
00:03:47Little didn't just keep them enslaved during his lifetime.
00:03:50He passed them down to his own children in his will, like furniture.
00:03:54This is the face my ancestors looked at every day.
00:03:58Every day.
00:03:58The eyes they looked at.
00:04:00The man they feared, the man they had to please.
00:04:03For six of your third great-grandparents, Nas.
00:04:06Nas responded with raw anger, shock, and disbelief,
00:04:10grappling with the visceral reality that his own bloodline had been treated as transferable property.
00:04:15Seeing slavery reduced to paperwork made the cruelty feel chillingly ordinary and deeply personal.
00:04:22In school, you read about slaves.
00:04:24We read about slaves in American history.
00:04:26But when you read it back then, you think about it like it's these other people.
00:04:32You don't realize that you're here because of them.
00:04:36Number 47.
00:04:37Jeff Goldblum
00:04:38Jeff Goldblum's family tree contained a branch that effectively vanished from history.
00:04:43His great-great-grandfather, Zelik Pavarczyk, left Sterobin in the Russian Empire in 1911.
00:04:49By September 1912, when this article was published,
00:04:53your great-grandfather, Zelik, had been living in Pittsburgh for just over a year.
00:04:57Oh my gosh, he escaped just in time.
00:04:58He likely would have had access to this article,
00:05:00and he would have read it knowing that his friends, neighbors, and maybe even family had been affected.
00:05:06Just a year later, anti-Jewish violence intensified in the region.
00:05:10The situation became catastrophic when the Nazis invaded in 1941.
00:05:15Researchers discovered that most of the Jews who remained in Sterobin,
00:05:19including many of Goldblum's relatives, were murdered during the Holocaust.
00:05:23What's it like to learn that?
00:05:25You know, not utterly surprising, of course.
00:05:29And, you know, it's very sad for humanity, all of us, you know, that we can do this.
00:05:39Entire family lines disappeared, leaving behind only fragments of documentation.
00:05:45The sole descendant Gates' team could identify from one branch died fighting the Nazis in the Soviet army.
00:05:51Confronted with both extraordinary bravery and unimaginable loss,
00:05:55Goldblum became visibly emotional as the scale of the tragedy sank in.
00:06:00Isn't that amazing?
00:06:01Yeah.
00:06:02They certainly knew nothing of each other, I'm sure.
00:06:04Mm-mm.
00:06:06But it's moving.
00:06:09It's very moving.
00:06:10Number 46.
00:06:12Kristen Bell.
00:06:13Your family very patriotic and rah-rah?
00:06:18Maybe?
00:06:20This is just a stab in the dark, but I feel like, uh, I feel like since they got here,
00:06:26they settled here,
00:06:27they're gonna go, we're gonna go all in, we're gonna be patriots.
00:06:30When actress Kristen Bell appeared in this season 11 episode,
00:06:33she probably wasn't expecting to find an espionage story in her lineage.
00:06:37Her seventh great-grandfather, William Bell, emigrated from Scotland and ultimately chose
00:06:42the wrong side of the American Revolutionary War, fighting as a loyalist rather than a patriot.
00:06:48Wrong side of history, friend.
00:06:50But Williams' loyalties ran deeper than battlefield allegiance.
00:06:54An affidavit written four years after the war revealed he had been actively spying for the
00:06:59British, covertly gathering intelligence inside the U.S. and funneling it to Canada.
00:07:04He was a spy.
00:07:06He was a loyalist and a spy.
00:07:08William, you tricky duck.
00:07:11His covert activities were eventually discovered, leading to his arrest.
00:07:15Although he escaped execution, the consequences were severe.
00:07:18William was imprisoned and later exiled along with his family.
00:07:22There were a lot of really, really poor decisions made that continue to be made for many,
00:07:30many, many years and have aftershocks to this day.
00:07:35Number 45, Terry Crews.
00:07:38Terry Crews has spoken openly about growing up terrified of his father's volatile and abusive
00:07:43behavior.
00:07:44My father played the lottery, both legal and illegal.
00:07:48You know, he played the numbers.
00:07:49So when he would hit, it was one of the most joyous times I'll ever remember in my household.
00:07:57During his appearance on Finding Your Roots, he learned that the cycle of pain stretched back
00:08:01another generation.
00:08:02Researchers uncovered records showing that his grandfather, Edward Crews, repeatedly spent time
00:08:08in jail and abandoned his children while they were still young.
00:08:11He and your dad would visit their father on Sundays.
00:08:15Oh.
00:08:16And he would always promise to do better when he got out.
00:08:19But as your uncle stated, he never kept his promise.
00:08:23This is so heartbreaking.
00:08:24The discovery shed new light on the emotional scars carried by Terry Crews Sr., who had grown
00:08:30up without stability or support.
00:08:32None of it excused the suffering Crews endured as a child, but it offered a heartbreaking explanation.
00:08:37Sometimes the darkest family revelations are not crimes or scandals, but seeing trauma
00:08:42passed from parent to child.
00:08:44I mean, hurt people hurt people.
00:08:47Yeah.
00:08:48And that's one thing I've learned in all my walks.
00:08:53Number 44.
00:08:55America Ferreira.
00:08:56For America Ferreira, the mystery surrounding her father Carlos had lingered for decades.
00:09:01He left the family when she was eight years old, returned to Honduras, and later died,
00:09:06leaving countless unanswered questions.
00:09:08Obviously, I can relate to losing a parent.
00:09:13Well, he was seven and I was about eight when he left me.
00:09:16Right.
00:09:17So I know that.
00:09:18I'm curious about the like, what that was then like for her to come back into his life.
00:09:24Gates uncovered a striking parallel between father and daughter.
00:09:27Carlos himself had experienced abandonment as a child after his mother, Georgina Paz Mendieta,
00:09:33left Honduras and started a new life elsewhere.
00:09:36Ferreira was shown a heartfelt love letter Georgina wrote to her future husband, revealing
00:09:41an entire chapter of family history she never knew existed.
00:09:44Despite the disappointment I suffered, I listened to your words.
00:09:49Despite my dashed hopes, I forged new ones and new dreams.
00:09:54I honestly cannot get over that you guys found a love letter.
00:09:57I can't get over it.
00:09:58Learning that her own father had endured a similar loss gave Ferreira a painful new perspective.
00:10:04The mirror image of her own story, reflected back through generations, was almost too much
00:10:09to hold.
00:10:10Feels like magic to get to witness even just a still image of his life.
00:10:22Number 43.
00:10:23Dustin Hoffman.
00:10:24Some families bury their darkest histories so thoroughly that even names get lost.
00:10:29Why am I not getting a blow to the head?
00:10:33It's, uh, it's abstract to me.
00:10:37Mm-hmm.
00:10:38Maybe because of such a total lack of family.
00:10:41Mm, could be.
00:10:41It's like I'm looking at fiction.
00:10:44Dustin Hoffman didn't know his paternal great-grandparents' names until his 2016 appearance on Finding
00:10:50Your Roots because his father had deliberately shielded him from what they endured.
00:10:54Gates' research revealed that Sam and Liba Hoffman were arrested during anti-Jewish pogroms
00:11:01in the Russian Empire.
00:11:02Sam was killed.
00:11:03Liba survived five years in a concentration camp before escaping and eventually making
00:11:08her way to America.
00:11:09Oh.
00:11:12That's the beginning of a movie.
00:11:14Hearing this for the first time visibly shattered Hoffman.
00:11:17His father's silence, which might have once felt like distance, suddenly became an act
00:11:22of protection.
00:11:23The revelation was devastating, but it also deepened Hoffman's pride in his Jewish heritage.
00:11:28People ask me today,
00:11:34what are you?
00:11:35I say I'm a Jew.
00:11:40That was the thought that went through.
00:11:42Number 42.
00:11:44Mandy Patinkin.
00:11:45Mandy Patinkin has spent decades on stage and screen exploring the depths of human suffering,
00:11:51and yet nothing could have prepared him for what Gates uncovered about his own bloodline.
00:11:56Oh, who could imagine the Holocaust?
00:11:58You know, in your worst nightmares, you know, but the Holocaust happened.
00:12:02Yeah.
00:12:03My job is to imagine.
00:12:06That is my profession.
00:12:08Right.
00:12:08I have never been able to get a hold of that.
00:12:11Though Patinkin always knew his family came from Jewish immigrant stock,
00:12:15he had no idea that relatives from Bronsk, a town in northeastern Poland,
00:12:20were rounded up and sent to Treblinka,
00:12:23one of the Nazi regime's deadliest extermination camps.
00:12:26Your great-grandfather alone lost two siblings, two sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews,
00:12:36and likely countless friends and acquaintances.
00:12:41And there was nothing they could do about it.
00:12:43He could barely finish reading the documented details of their deaths before breaking down entirely.
00:12:48Patinkin recalled asking his father about this history before, but he never got an answer.
00:12:53I was never given this information.
00:12:56This is...
00:12:58I don't have words.
00:13:02That's unbelievable.
00:13:04Perhaps his father simply couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.
00:13:07Some truths, it turns out, are too heavy to pass down willingly.
00:13:11Number 41.
00:13:13Regina King
00:13:13Oscar-winning actress and director Regina King was brought to tears
00:13:17after learning about the childhood of her third great-grandfather, Bob Kane.
00:13:21It makes me feel sad for my dad.
00:13:27And something happened while he didn't want to...
00:13:30doesn't want to...
00:13:31never wanted to talk about it, I guess.
00:13:33Born into slavery, Kane spent his earliest years being treated not as a child,
00:13:38but as property.
00:13:39Records revealed that he was transferred between members of the family who enslaved him,
00:13:43his future determined entirely by other people's decisions.
00:13:46And he's a boy that's six and just alone.
00:13:52And, you know, I couldn't imagine that six-year-old being alone.
00:13:56Right.
00:13:57And, you know, seeing it like this and seeing it written just, um, just kind of hits differently.
00:14:03King found it particularly heartbreaking to imagine someone so young being stripped of
00:14:08even the most basic human dignity.
00:14:10But the story didn't end there.
00:14:12After emancipation, Kane wasted no time claiming the rights he had been denied.
00:14:16Despite being unable to read or write, he registered to vote.
00:14:20For King, that act of courage transformed sorrow into admiration.
00:14:25So now these are happy tears.
00:14:29Because, um, he understood the importance of that and what that meant.
00:14:36Mm-hmm.
00:14:37And like you said, even though he couldn't read and he couldn't write, he could feel.
00:14:42Number 40, Anderson Cooper.
00:14:45Having family from the Deep South, I'm not surprised that there's some, you know, at least
00:14:50one slaveholder.
00:14:51But I also kind of always thought my relatives were so poor that they wouldn't have had slaves.
00:14:57Sometimes the darkest family secrets aren't about what happened to your ancestors, but
00:15:01about what your ancestors did to others.
00:15:04Anderson Cooper came to learn that when he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2014.
00:15:08His fourth great-grandfather, Burwell Boykin, was a slave owner in the American South who ran
00:15:13a plantation with 12 enslaved people.
00:15:16These are slaves he owned?
00:15:18These are the slaves he owned.
00:15:19Wow.
00:15:20Your fourth great-grandfather owned 12 people, ranging in age from 1 to 60.
00:15:27One of those people escaped.
00:15:29When recaptured, he was locked in a shed and later fought back, fatally striking Boykin with
00:15:34a farm tool.
00:15:35For that act of self-defense, the enslaved man was executed without a fair trial.
00:15:39I wish I knew the name of the slave.
00:15:42Mm-hmm.
00:15:43You know, when you think about how many people's names history just never remembers and people
00:15:48whose stories are never told?
00:15:49Absolutely.
00:15:50Cooper didn't flinch from what this revealed about his own ancestry.
00:15:54He acknowledged being stunned by the violence involved, but made clear he felt absolutely
00:15:59no sympathy for Boykin.
00:16:01I feel bad for the man who killed him.
00:16:03And I feel bad for the 11 other unnamed people who, God only knows what happened to them.
00:16:10Number 39.
00:16:12Spike Lee.
00:16:13Spike Lee has spent much of his career examining race and American history through film, but
00:16:18even he seemed stunned by the documents researchers uncovered.
00:16:21That's evil, man.
00:16:23Slavery was evil.
00:16:27I mean, he just, he just, I don't think this guy's capable of a smile.
00:16:32Estate records showed that his third great-grandfather, Richard Wellborn, along with his mother Harriet
00:16:37and several siblings, were literally listed as assets in a white landowner's estate.
00:16:43Together, they were assigned a monetary value of $1,600.
00:16:47There's your great-great-grandfather, Richard, alongside his four siblings and their mother.
00:16:53You just met your great-great-great-grandmother, Harriet.
00:16:57And that's your family listed together as property in the estate of that white man.
00:17:02Human being is property.
00:17:04Human being is property.
00:17:05Following the owner's death, they were inherited by another family member and transferred into
00:17:10the orbit of a massive Georgia plantation.
00:17:12Seeing ancestors reduced to figures on a balance sheet was painful enough.
00:17:16Learning they were passed between generations like furniture or livestock drove home slavery's
00:17:21dehumanizing reality in an especially chilling way.
00:17:25After Abner's death, they were inherited by his daughter, Martha Wellborn.
00:17:31Like an heirloom, man.
00:17:33Oh, you get the piano.
00:17:34Or old Coke.
00:17:36Yeah.
00:17:37Number 38.
00:17:38Tamara Morey.
00:17:39At nine years old, most children are worried about school, friends, and what's for dinner.
00:17:44For Tamara Morey's third great-grandmother, Margaret Roll, nine was the age at which she
00:17:50appeared in official documents as a field laborer.
00:17:53You know, when you're that young, I know my kids, you want to protect them, keep that,
00:18:03you want them to keep that innocence.
00:18:05Yeah.
00:18:06But for Margaret, that did not exist.
00:18:12Roll was born into slavery in the Bahamas with no say over her own body or future.
00:18:17The weight of that detail hit Morey hard.
00:18:19She sat with the reality of what daily life must have looked like for a child performing
00:18:24back-breaking labor, owned by someone else, with no path to freedom that didn't require
00:18:29extraordinary endurance.
00:18:31She'd be proud.
00:18:32Oh, no question.
00:18:33She would be proud.
00:18:35But you just feel so, you know, she had to go through that.
00:18:38Yeah.
00:18:39As a child.
00:18:40Morey was visibly overcome, not just by the cruelty of it, but by the sheer resilience
00:18:45required of her ancestor to survive.
00:18:47I wonder what she did to escape her current situation.
00:18:54Right.
00:18:54Mm-hmm.
00:18:56What were her thoughts of hope?
00:18:59What's her flights of fancy?
00:19:00Yes.
00:19:01Yeah.
00:19:02Number 37, David Duchovny.
00:19:04David Duchovny's family story is one of relentless displacement.
00:19:08I don't know what that affects me.
00:19:11You've come a long way.
00:19:12I don't know.
00:19:17It just makes me so sad that I didn't get to meet him, really.
00:19:22Learning that his grandfather, Moishe, was born in Russia, prompted immediate tears.
00:19:27But the deeper gates dug, the heavier the story became.
00:19:31Moishe and his family were among roughly one million Jews who fled Russia amid surging
00:19:35anti-Semitic violence.
00:19:37They moved to Jaffa in present-day Israel, only to face continued persecution and eventual
00:19:42deportation to Egypt.
00:19:43So they had these little kids, these little kids from Russia in Egypt now.
00:19:49Wow.
00:19:50No family lore about any of this?
00:19:53No.
00:19:54From there, Moishe and his father ultimately sailed to the United States, settling in New
00:19:59York.
00:19:59Every stop along that journey was driven by someone else's hostility.
00:20:03The prejudice and violence that chased Duchovny's ancestors across multiple countries before they
00:20:08finally found a semblance of stability is a dark thread that runs through the whole episode.
00:20:13They ran and they ran and they got somewhere.
00:20:17You know, they didn't give up.
00:20:21They didn't give up.
00:20:22Number 36, Anthony Ramos.
00:20:25Actor Anthony Ramos came to Finding Your Roots expecting to learn about his Spanish heritage,
00:20:29but got something far more layered and unsettling.
00:20:32Gates revealed that his 15th great-grandfather wasn't Spanish at all, but a guanche, a native
00:20:38indigenous inhabitant of Tenerife and the Canary Islands, who had been enslaved by Spanish
00:20:43colonizers.
00:20:44It means a lot.
00:20:45Gives me a newfound definition of what my identity is, where it comes from, because I
00:20:53didn't know any of this.
00:20:53This ancestor managed to secure his freedom, but only by finding another person to take
00:20:58his place in bondage.
00:20:59Someone else became enslaved so he could go free.
00:21:03How do you convince somebody to do that?
00:21:05Yo, my man, can you just, like, take my place with this family?
00:21:08I'm just trying to get this freedom real quick.
00:21:10I promise, like, when I get my freedom, I'm gonna try and come back and get you or something.
00:21:14Like, what kind of, how you made that deal?
00:21:16And then, astonishingly, he went on to serve in the Spanish military, fighting alongside
00:21:21the very empire that had once held him captive.
00:21:23It's a deeply complicated moral knot, and Ramos had to sit with all of it at once.
00:21:29I can only imagine that he was probably like, yo, this is probably the easiest way for me
00:21:32to have a better life.
00:21:34Yeah.
00:21:35So, you know, F it.
00:21:38I'm out.
00:21:39Yeah.
00:21:39I'm gonna side with these guys, because they got it better.
00:21:42Number 35, Sanaa Lathan.
00:21:44I'm surprised that granddaddy, we used to call him granddaddy, that he didn't tell us
00:21:49that.
00:21:50Maybe I just didn't pay attention, you know?
00:21:52But I don't remember this.
00:21:55This is amazing.
00:21:56In this Season 12 episode, Sanaa Lathan learned that one of her ancestors found himself at
00:22:01the center of an early battle against educational discrimination.
00:22:05Her maternal great-grandfather, Wesley Deer McCoy, attended veterinary school in Michigan
00:22:10during the early 20th century.
00:22:12Despite being a qualified student, he and another Black classmate were expelled solely because
00:22:17of their race.
00:22:18Many people would have walked away out of sheer hopelessness, but not these two.
00:22:25Wesley and Felix sued the school.
00:22:27Refusing to accept the injustice, they filed a lawsuit that eventually reached the Michigan
00:22:32Supreme Court, becoming one of the earliest anti-segregation cases involving college students.
00:22:38Although they ultimately prevailed, victory did not end the hostility.
00:22:42Many classmates continued to discriminate against them.
00:22:45The junior class at once walked out and passed resolutions that they would not attend classes
00:22:50in company with the n*** students.
00:22:52Later, the students made up an effigy representing the n*** man and hung it in one of the halls.
00:22:59For Lathan, the revelation highlighted how even remarkable achievements could not shield
00:23:04Black Americans from racism.
00:23:05He had to really be, I mean, what a determined, you know, kind of mind and soul to have endured
00:23:17that cruelty.
00:23:19Number 34.
00:23:21Soledad O'Brien.
00:23:22There's a fine line between criminal and survivor, and Soledad O'Brien's third great-grandmother,
00:23:28Lilius Whiteman, walked it in 19th century Scotland.
00:23:31My parents would be so ashamed.
00:23:34They would be so disappointed.
00:23:37Gates presented O'Brien with a prison register showing that a 41-year-old Whiteman had been
00:23:42arrested for robbery alongside a group of teenage boys.
00:23:45The implication, that she might have been running a small gang of thieves, caught O'Brien off guard,
00:23:50and initially seemed to embarrass her.
00:23:53I really thought that on my dad's side of the family, like, that was a long legacy of
00:23:58business people who ran things well.
00:24:01I didn't realize on the Whiteman side, which, by the way, nobody talks about.
00:24:05And now I know why.
00:24:06Because they also ran things, like scams.
00:24:09But when researchers traced the circumstances around Whiteman's arrest, a grimmer picture emerged.
00:24:15Whiteman had lost her husband and was struggling to survive in an era with few opportunities
00:24:20for impoverished women.
00:24:21Faced with desperate circumstances, she apparently turned to crime.
00:24:25This revelation transformed the embarrassing story into something far more heartbreaking.
00:24:30I think it really does bring to life a time when there were no opportunities,
00:24:34certainly for women, certainly for widows.
00:24:36Widows who had children didn't have a lot of options.
00:24:39I mean, it really must have been just terrible.
00:24:41Terrible.
00:24:42That's sad.
00:24:43Number 33.
00:24:44Questlove.
00:24:45Questlove's appearance in Season 4 yielded one of the most significant discoveries in
00:24:49the history of the series.
00:24:51Researchers determined that his ancestors, Charles and Maggie Lewis, had arrived in Alabama
00:24:56aboard the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to bring captive Africans into the United
00:25:02States.
00:25:03You are the only African-American I've ever met who could name the ship.
00:25:09I'm on the absolute last ship that ever came here.
00:25:15The revelation was especially shocking because the voyage occurred more than 50 years after
00:25:20the international slave trade had been outlawed.
00:25:24His ancestors were not merely victims of slavery.
00:25:26They were victims of an illegal trafficking operation conducted in defiance of federal law.
00:25:31I mean, all types of emotions are running through my head.
00:25:36I feel sad.
00:25:38I feel angered.
00:25:40I feel confused.
00:25:43I feel lucky.
00:25:45After emancipation, they helped establish Africatown, a community built by fellow survivors.
00:25:51For Questlove, the discovery connected his family directly to one of slavery's final and
00:25:56darkest chapters.
00:25:57You know how lucky you are, Amir?
00:25:59It's a miracle.
00:26:00I never imagined this in my entire life that I'd see this.
00:26:05I just had to keep looking at him because those are my eyes, man.
00:26:10Number 32, Lizzie Kaplan.
00:26:12A single decision made in 1906 split Lizzie Kaplan's family into two completely different
00:26:17fates.
00:26:18Her great-grandfather, Abram Leib Miodovnik, left the Russian Empire for New York that year,
00:26:24a choice that almost certainly saved his life.
00:26:27Just the idea that he was coming to join his sister, who I've never heard of, and even
00:26:33just the correspondence that would be required to make those plans and how long that would
00:26:37take and how, I mean, it's crazy.
00:26:41The relatives he left behind were not so fortunate.
00:26:44Most devastatingly, Kaplan learned that her great-granduncle, Wolf Miodovnik, was in Belgium
00:26:50when Germany invaded in 1940.
00:26:52Wolf endured three concentration camps and a transit camp during the Holocaust.
00:26:57Unfortunately, his wife and child were murdered at Auschwitz.
00:27:02Can you imagine?
00:27:03No.
00:27:04Genuinely, no.
00:27:06Um, just what a terrifying time.
00:27:10Kaplan had no prior knowledge of any direct familial connection to the Holocaust.
00:27:15The revelation left her confronting a family tragedy that could easily have erased her entire
00:27:19branch of the family tree.
00:27:21Growing up, it was my friends whose grandparents had survived the Holocaust, and we were very
00:27:26aware of who those grandparents were, and my grandparents were not in that group.
00:27:29So this is news to me.
00:27:32Number 31.
00:27:33John Lewis.
00:27:34Perhaps no entry on this list carries more historical resonance than this one.
00:27:39Gates's researchers found a marriage certificate for civil rights icon John Lewis' great-great-grandparents,
00:27:45Tobias and Elizabeth Carter, dated just 10 days after the 13th Amendment formally abolished
00:27:51slavery.
00:27:52They are your great-great-grandparents being written about by the granddaughter of the Confederate
00:27:59man who owned them.
00:28:00That is really, that is wild.
00:28:03By 1867, Tobias had already registered to vote in Alabama.
00:28:07A century later, John Lewis was marching in Selma, fighting for that exact same right.
00:28:12The fact that his ancestors had to claim it in the 1860s, only for the battle to still be
00:28:17raging in the 1960s, is both heartbreaking and deeply sobering.
00:28:22It is incredible.
00:28:23I don't think my parents or grandparents ever voted before 1965.
00:28:33They weren't allowed to register to vote as far as I know.
00:28:37Lewis was moved to tears discovering the courage of Tobias Carter.
00:28:40But the underlying revelation, that so little had fundamentally changed across a century,
00:28:45is the part that truly stings.
00:28:48A member of my family registered and voted in Alabama for 100 years before I did, before
00:29:04my mother, my father, my grandparents.
00:29:08It was amazing.
00:29:10Number 30, Joyce Willis.
00:29:12While Finding Your Roots typically focuses on celebrities, the season 10 finale dived into
00:29:17the ancestry of three everyday Americans.
00:29:20One of them, Joyce Willis, hoped to discover if Robert G. Willis, the man believed to be her
00:29:27great-grandfather, actually was.
00:29:29We don't know if Beatrice was born into a peaceful home.
00:29:33There are no further records even to suggest why Robert might have said that she wasn't his
00:29:41daughter.
00:29:42The investigation revealed surprising details about Robert and his wife, Elnora.
00:29:47Researchers uncovered that while Elnora was still nursing their baby, Robert had hit her,
00:29:53an offense that would have landed him in jail if Elnora hadn't begged the judge.
00:29:58The one that he hurt was the one that saved him.
00:30:01Mm-hmm.
00:30:02Well, she clearly saved him because he was going to go in the can.
00:30:07Wow.
00:30:08Their turmoil didn't end there.
00:30:10Just months later, their baby, Robert Jr., died at just seven months old.
00:30:16Aware of the state of her great-grandparents' marriage, Willis reflected that such a loss likely
00:30:21deepened the cracks in their already fragile relationship.
00:30:24You know, so I imagine since there was already some marital discord,
00:30:28that it may have pushed them further apart from each other.
00:30:31Number 29.
00:30:32Terry Morrow.
00:30:33The Viewers Like You episode also featured Terry Morrow, a school bus driver who set out
00:30:39to uncover why Elnora Chambers, her great-grandfather's mother, had abandoned him as a child.
00:30:45Morrow's great-grandfather, Walter Tagger, was only five when Elnora left him with another family.
00:30:51He would have longed to see her again, longed for the possibility of seeing her again,
00:30:58because what child doesn't want to see their mother?
00:31:00You're always your mother's child.
00:31:01Through the show, she learned that Walter was the product of a relationship between Elnora,
00:31:06who was white, and Hal Moore, a black man.
00:31:09At the time, interracial relationships were illegal, making it impossible for the couple to stay together.
00:31:16Elnora later married a white man and had two more children,
00:31:19one of whom died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
00:31:22What's it like to know that Elnora's other family had such tough going?
00:31:26It was hard for everybody.
00:31:28I mean, it was hard.
00:31:29It was hard for her, for choices that she made, but it was hard for everybody.
00:31:33Though Morrow struggled with Elnora's decision,
00:31:36she ultimately came to see it as an act that ensured Walter's survival,
00:31:40and eventually her own existence.
00:31:42She made a choice that saved her life, saved his life, and brought me into the world, you know.
00:31:51That's a lovely way to put it.
00:31:52Number 28.
00:31:53Ed O'Neill
00:31:54He's best known for portraying the patriarch of beloved fictional families.
00:31:59But in 2024, Ed O'Neill sought to know more about his real family.
00:32:04What he discovered about his third great-grandmother, Bridget Tyrell,
00:32:08left him both shocked and deeply moved.
00:32:10Oh, that's just incredible.
00:32:12It is.
00:32:13Boy, I'm glad I came here today.
00:32:15An Irish immigrant living in Ohio when the Civil War broke out,
00:32:19Bridget watched two of her sons join the Union Army.
00:32:22She then decided to serve in her own way.
00:32:25But as it turns out, Bridget wasn't at home at all.
00:32:29Bridget was serving in the Union Army herself as a nurse.
00:32:34Despite likely having no formal medical training,
00:32:37Bridget made several trips to the battlefields to care for wounded soldiers.
00:32:41In this role, she witnessed unspeakable horrors,
00:32:45and often stayed with the dying soldiers in their final moments.
00:32:48When she passed away, her obituary was published in the newspaper,
00:32:52honoring her compassion and selfless service.
00:32:55Many a dying soldier blessed her for her kindness and care with their last breath.
00:33:02So that was sort of what I thought.
00:33:04Number 27.
00:33:06Christopher Maloney
00:33:07For actor Christopher Maloney to be born in America,
00:33:10his paternal great-grandfather, Enrico Maloney,
00:33:13first had to overcome incredible odds to migrate from Italy.
00:33:17In this Season 7 episode, Maloney learned that Enrico never knew his parents,
00:33:22as he had been abandoned at a church when he was a baby.
00:33:25The person leaving the baby would rotate the wheel and its contents into the building
00:33:31and then ring a bell to alert the attendant.
00:33:35He managed to survive his childhood thanks to a nurse who cared for him.
00:33:39But that support ended when he was just 12 years old, forcing him to fend for himself.
00:33:44They detailed the small amounts of money she spent on his care.
00:33:48But the payments stopped when Enrico was about 12 years old,
00:33:53suggesting that at that age, he was left to his own devices.
00:33:57Although such experiences were common for orphans in Italy at the time,
00:34:02that didn't make the revelation any less harrowing for Maloney.
00:34:05As he processed the hardships Enrico had to endure,
00:34:09Maloney grew emotional and was ultimately brought to tears.
00:34:12Yeah, I think that's what the feelings are.
00:34:15Number 26. Ted Danson
00:34:18Actor Ted Danson's 10th great-grandmother was Anne Hutchinson,
00:34:22a Puritan who emigrated from England to colonial Massachusetts
00:34:26and soon challenged the strict norms of her community.
00:34:30As Anne's prayer meetings grew in popularity,
00:34:33she began to criticize the sermons of Puritan ministers,
00:34:37throwing herself into direct conflict with the colony's religious establishment.
00:34:42Hutchinson held gatherings in her home
00:34:44where she encouraged women to think critically
00:34:46and interpret sermons on their own.
00:34:49That would be celebrated today,
00:34:51but back in the 17th century, it was a radical step.
00:34:54Doesn't look good for your grandma.
00:34:56Don't look good for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
00:35:01Shame, shame on them.
00:35:03After claiming she could communicate directly with God,
00:35:05Hutchinson was eventually brought to trial for heresy.
00:35:09At her hearing, she gave a defiant speech,
00:35:12asserting that her fate rested with God and not the court.
00:35:15I love the first part.
00:35:16You have no power over my body.
00:35:18Neither can you do me any harm.
00:35:19I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah, my Savior.
00:35:22It's extraordinary.
00:35:23Yeah, it almost felt like Joan of Arc.
00:35:25Though she was convicted and banished from the colony,
00:35:28Hutchinson is now remembered as a feminist icon
00:35:31and a trailblazer for religious freedom.
00:35:34Number 25. Eric Stonestreet
00:35:36Yeah, I've never, I personally have never heard this.
00:35:40We're getting close to my grandma being born here in 1918.
00:35:43That's right.
00:35:43As a child, Eric Stonestreet shared a close bond
00:35:46with his grandmother, Helen Heath.
00:35:49So when he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2019,
00:35:52he took the opportunity to explore her ancestry.
00:35:55Helen's grandfather, Wilhelm Kiechert,
00:35:58had emigrated from Germany to America in his early 20s.
00:36:02He settled in Kansas, where he bought land
00:36:04and started a farm with his family.
00:36:06This is him creating a new life for himself
00:36:10and literally cultivating the ground for me.
00:36:15However, after the U.S. entered World War I,
00:36:18the government grew suspicious of German immigrants
00:36:20and required them to register or face arrest.
00:36:24As a result, Wilhelm and his wife, Anna,
00:36:27were forced to register as alien enemies of the state
00:36:30and were treated like criminals.
00:36:32As you can see, he was fingerprinted.
00:36:34Like a criminal.
00:36:36Oh my gosh.
00:36:38He did this because he had to?
00:36:40Because he had to.
00:36:41He had to either show up or risk.
00:36:44He would go to jail.
00:36:45Got it.
00:36:45They endured this discrimination until the war ended,
00:36:49after which Wilhelm became a naturalized American citizen.
00:36:53Number 24.
00:36:54Lupita Nyong'o.
00:36:55Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o
00:36:58came on Finding Your Roots to learn more about her father,
00:37:00Anyong Nyong'o.
00:37:02A political science professor,
00:37:04Anyong was a key figure in the fight for democracy
00:37:07during the autocratic rule of President Daniel Moy in Kenya.
00:37:11My father is so passionate about the country
00:37:14and he so deeply believes that there is a better future possible.
00:37:21In 1980, his family was informed that his younger brother Charles had died,
00:37:26but they later suspected he had been deliberately killed as a warning.
00:37:30Despite this, Anyong continued to hold secret political meetings in his house.
00:37:35When the government discovered these gatherings,
00:37:37he was abducted and held in a torture facility for several weeks.
00:37:41I didn't understand what was going on, and he was gone for a while.
00:37:4526 days he was tortured in Nyong'o house.
00:37:48Your mother must have thought your father was ever going to come back.
00:37:51She must have.
00:37:52Nevertheless, he remained committed to advancing democracy in Kenya.
00:37:56Anyong's resilience eventually led to his election to the Kenyan Senate,
00:38:00and later, his appointment as governor of Kisumu County.
00:38:04That's beautiful.
00:38:05Your father's story is a miracle.
00:38:07He's my hero.
00:38:08Number 23.
00:38:10Brendan Fraser.
00:38:11Imagine thinking this through.
00:38:13This is what we're going to do.
00:38:14Yeah.
00:38:14We're going to get a gun.
00:38:15We're going to ambush him.
00:38:18Yeah.
00:38:18They had a plan.
00:38:20That's criminal.
00:38:21For Oscar-winning actor Brendan Fraser,
00:38:23the dark revelation in his ancestry was far more than a family dispute or a hidden secret.
00:38:28It involved an attempted murder.
00:38:31In season 10, Fraser learned about his great-great-grandfather, Patrick Devine,
00:38:36who emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. as a child and worked as a coal miner.
00:38:40By the time that census had been recorded, Patrick, your ancestor,
00:38:44had likely been a coal miner for more than 30 years.
00:38:47Right.
00:38:48As you can see, he and Margaret now had eight children.
00:38:51When their wages were reduced, Patrick and his fellow miners went on strike,
00:38:55only to be replaced by new workers.
00:38:57In response, Patrick and another engineer tried to kill their replacements by shooting them,
00:39:03but they fortunately survived.
00:39:05It seems to you,
00:39:05your great-great-grandfather, Patrick, was fired from his job for striking.
00:39:10And along with a former colleague, he shot at the man who had replaced him.
00:39:17Despite this being a crime, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. found no records of Patrick being charged.
00:39:24In fact, he later returned to the same job and managed to purchase his own home.
00:39:28Number 22. Don Lemon
00:39:31It's heartbreaking to fathom a human being being treated as the property of another.
00:39:36And it's even more disturbing to think of a monetary value being placed on such lives.
00:39:41TV anchor Don Lemon confronted this painful reality when he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2021.
00:39:47M. Shannon departed this life leaving an estate composed of land,
00:39:52slaves, and movables situated in this parish.
00:39:56Lemon was shown a document listing the names of some of his ancestors
00:40:00who were held as slaves at a plantation.
00:40:03The records, compiled after the death of the plantation's mistress,
00:40:07included not only their names and ages, but also their appraised worth in dollars.
00:40:13Eliza, two, and an infant at $1,800.
00:40:20That was their worth?
00:40:22Right.
00:40:22As Lemon read this figure aloud, he was overcome with emotion
00:40:26and couldn't stop himself from shedding tears.
00:40:32That's where I came from.
00:40:34Number 21. Michael Imperioli
00:40:37The infrastructure we enjoy today was built through tireless hard work
00:40:41and, at times, painful human sacrifice.
00:40:44Actor Michael Imperioli's family suffered one such tragedy
00:40:47during the development of the New York City subway system.
00:40:51It was difficult and dangerous work.
00:40:54And it led to a terrible tragedy.
00:40:57Back in the early 20th century, his great-grandfather, Giovanni Luzzi,
00:41:01worked as a car cleaner for the trains.
00:41:04However, his life came to a shocking end in 1919,
00:41:08when he was struck by a train while working on the tracks in the Bronx.
00:41:11A horrible way to die.
00:41:13I mean, yeah, and he was so young.
00:41:16Giovanni was struck by a train in the Bronx while working on a stretch of elevated track.
00:41:22This sudden loss meant that his young wife was left to raise their children all on her own.
00:41:27The absence of a father had a lasting impact on the young family,
00:41:30and it reportedly led to Imperioli's grandfather, Alberto Luzzi, acting out as a child.
00:41:36His life as a kid reminded me of, like, the Little Rascals or, like, the Bowery Boys,
00:41:40like this, you know, gang of little kids, like, wandering around Manhattan,
00:41:44getting into trouble and, you know, stealing, like, you know, pastries.
00:41:47Number 20.
00:41:48Alanis Morissette
00:41:50Canadian rock artist Alanis Morissette didn't learn about her Jewish ancestry
00:41:54until she was in her late 20s.
00:41:56Why do you think that no one told you?
00:41:59I think there was a terror that is in their bones,
00:42:02and they were being protective of us and just not wanting anti-Semitism,
00:42:07and so they were doing it to protect us.
00:42:10On Finding Your Roots, she uncovered even more details about that side of her family,
00:42:15particularly the fate of her great uncles, Georgie and Sandor Fierstein.
00:42:20Both men disappeared during the Holocaust, leaving their family with no answers.
00:42:24Can you imagine what that was like for your grandfather, carrying that burden?
00:42:28Not knowing where your sibling is, if they're alive or dead.
00:42:30Yeah.
00:42:31Having no closure.
00:42:32No finality.
00:42:33No.
00:42:34God.
00:42:35However, using records at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center,
00:42:40the show's team dug up those answers.
00:42:43They discovered that the brothers had been sent to work camps in Russia,
00:42:47where they tragically lost their lives.
00:42:49Morissette found this especially heartbreaking,
00:42:52as her grandfather, who escaped the same fate as his brothers and moved to Canada,
00:42:57passed away without ever knowing what happened to them.
00:43:00I mean, it's one thing to have a family rumor that they disappeared.
00:43:03Yeah.
00:43:04But now we know why they disappeared.
00:43:05Yeah, no, my mother and my grandmother, we didn't get into this.
00:43:09Number 19.
00:43:10Jordan Peele.
00:43:11I mean, you gotta think that, you know, knowing that this could happen,
00:43:15you go your entire life, or your child's entire life, fearing this day.
00:43:20One often overlooked consequence of the slave trade was the separation of families.
00:43:25Fathers never seeing their kids again,
00:43:27young children forced to grow up on their own.
00:43:30That unfortunate fate befell filmmaker Jordan Peele's great-great-grandmother, Alvania.
00:43:36In 1860, when she was just 12 years old,
00:43:39Alvania was taken away from her parents and brother,
00:43:42and sold into slavery for $1,250.
00:43:46It's crazy, and you wonder what that does to the psychology of a family.
00:43:57While reflecting on what effect such an experience could have on the psyche of Alvania and her family,
00:44:03Peele felt a mix of pain and pride.
00:44:05He recognized the psychological trauma they must have endured as a result,
00:44:10and how that may have been passed down through generations.
00:44:12And, you know, I wonder if there's some kind of deep-seated connection
00:44:19and the idea of you can be a family, even if you're apart.
00:44:26Number 18, Lisa Ling.
00:44:28We found a very different kind of story.
00:44:31A story not of family secrets, but rather of a family in terrible danger.
00:44:37In December 1941, during World War II, Japan invaded Hong Kong,
00:44:43beginning a nearly four-year military occupation that led to widespread starvation and countless deaths.
00:44:50To escape the famine and brutality of Japanese rule, many residents fled on foot to China.
00:44:56One of them was journalist Lisa Ling's grandmother,
00:44:59who wrote a book about her harrowing experience making that journey.
00:45:02We had already marched three days, putting in about 15 miles each day.
00:45:08My shoes were in terrible condition, with the soles worn through.
00:45:12Broken blisters on my feet caused much pain and discomfort.
00:45:16After each rest, I had to clench my teeth in order to hoist myself up from the bench to start
00:45:21walking again.
00:45:22Ling had actually read the book years earlier, but seeing it again on the show,
00:45:26she was able to re-examine it with a more mature perspective.
00:45:29She was clearly struck by the immense resilience and strength her grandmother showed
00:45:35in embarking on that journey while carrying her family on her back, literally.
00:45:39They had no idea that they went into China.
00:45:42I had no idea.
00:45:44I can't even imagine how she was able to do it.
00:45:47Number 17, Justina Machado.
00:45:49Justina, this is a court record we located in the General Archives in Puerto Rico.
00:45:53It concerns a prison sentence handed down on May 9th, 1939.
00:45:57The freedoms enjoyed by queer people in some parts of the world today are the result of long, hard-fought
00:46:04battles.
00:46:05Few things highlight the significance of these struggles as clearly as cases like this.
00:46:10On season six of Finding Your Roots, actress Justina Machado discovered a surprising part of her grandfather's past.
00:46:17The people of Puerto Rico vs. Ismael Figueroa Machado and Francisco Pérez Luciano.
00:46:24Crime against nature.
00:46:26In his youth, he was sent to the Rio Piedras State Penitentiary,
00:46:30one of the most notorious Caribbean prisons, for having sexual relations with another man.
00:46:36At the time, this was considered a crime in the eyes of the law,
00:46:39one that attracted even more prison time for her grandfather while he was already incarcerated.
00:46:44I mean, he didn't have Bendito.
00:46:47Didn't have a chance.
00:46:48No, it's so sad. I mean, you know, yeah.
00:46:52Number 16, West Studi.
00:46:54Between 1830 and 1850, the U.S. government forcibly displaced around 60,000 indigenous Americans
00:47:02from their ancestral homelands in what became known as the Trail of Tears.
00:47:06And I know it's got to be painful.
00:47:11Well, we've lived with that pain for a long time.
00:47:14This ethnic cleansing left scars that have impacted generations of Native Americans,
00:47:19including actor Wes Studi.
00:47:21When he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2024,
00:47:24Studi learned of his maternal third-grade grandmother, Big Nancy,
00:47:28who was among those forced to leave their home in Georgia and suffer a grueling journey to Oklahoma.
00:47:33I've been to some of the places that she passed through.
00:47:42I've been to many of these places, seen them.
00:47:46Years after the harrowing ordeal, Nancy filed a claim for compensation,
00:47:51seeking $187 for the properties white settlers had taken from her.
00:47:57Studi reflected on the deep pain this history carries,
00:48:00acknowledging the lasting effects it has had on his people.
00:48:03Well, it pisses me off.
00:48:05It always has.
00:48:06But it's more succinct.
00:48:11Now I know where it was.
00:48:13And I wonder if the people are still there who took over her place.
00:48:18Number 15.
00:48:19Jeff Daniels
00:48:20During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692,
00:48:23one of the few men convicted of witchcraft and executed was Samuel Wardwell.
00:48:28Samuel Wardwell saith that at that time when the devil appeared and told him he was a prince of the
00:48:36air,
00:48:37that then he signed his book by making a mark like a square with a black pen.
00:48:42Wardwell was a self-professed fortune teller whose practices apparently drew suspicions of the occult among the locals
00:48:49and led to his conviction.
00:48:51One of the people who testified against him was Captain Thomas Chandler,
00:48:56the eighth great-grandfather of actor Jeff Daniels.
00:48:59Now, according to scholars with whom we spoke,
00:49:01your ancestors' testimony in this trial is fairly mild.
00:49:05But this was not his only involvement in the affair.
00:49:11Daniels learned this unsettling fact on Finding Your Roots,
00:49:14where he also discovered that Chandler testified against another accused witch, Mary Parker.
00:49:19Unlike Wardwell, Parker was Chandler's neighbor and peer,
00:49:24yet he believed she was using sorcery on his daughter and granddaughter,
00:49:28which prompted his testimony.
00:49:30I would like to think that it wasn't just something he did to enjoy,
00:49:34that it was something that he actually believed in,
00:49:36but that doesn't make it a bit better.
00:49:38Number 14.
00:49:40Eliza Schlesinger
00:49:41When you look at pictures from history of atrocities committed against your people in particular,
00:49:49there's always that pull.
00:49:50But I never thought I had any actual connection,
00:49:55because I didn't know any of the history.
00:49:57It was abstract.
00:49:58Yes.
00:49:58Although she had always been aware of her Jewish heritage,
00:50:01comedian Eliza Schlesinger never knew she had a direct link to the Holocaust,
00:50:06until she appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2024.
00:50:09In the episode, Schlesinger learned that while her great-grandmother
00:50:13immigrated to the U.S. from Poland before the Holocaust,
00:50:16she left behind at least two brothers.
00:50:19One of them, Lipa,
00:50:21was a textile dealer who was forced into a ghetto in Mwawa after the Nazis invaded.
00:50:26I know that feeling when your sibling's in danger and you feel helpless,
00:50:30especially from like an ocean away.
00:50:33So I can't begin to imagine this.
00:50:37I don't think I want to.
00:50:39He was later sent to Auschwitz, where he tragically lost his life.
00:50:43The revelation brought Schlesinger to tears,
00:50:46as she confronted both the atrocities that her ancestor endured,
00:50:50as well as her newfound connection to the Holocaust.
00:50:52It was already so real.
00:50:57And so now it's palpable.
00:51:03Number 13. Sigourney Weaver
00:51:05Award-winning actress Sigourney Weaver came to Finding Your Roots,
00:51:09hoping to uncover a juicy scandal in her ancestral line.
00:51:13What she found, however, was far darker than she expected.
00:51:17I see.
00:51:18But where's Barbara?
00:51:18Where's Josiah's wife?
00:51:20Your great-great-grandmother?
00:51:22I don't know.
00:51:23Did she die?
00:51:24Well, remember, it said that he's married.
00:51:26So if she had died, he would be a widower.
00:51:28But she's just not there.
00:51:29Using census records from 1871,
00:51:32the show's researchers discovered that Weaver's great-great-grandparents,
00:51:36Josiah and Barbara Hunt,
00:51:38were living apart, despite having a child together.
00:51:41Barbara had moved in with another man,
00:51:43whom Josiah accused her of having an affair with.
00:51:46After the separation, Mrs. Hunt went to reside at Reading with the correspondent,
00:51:51ostensibly as his housekeeper.
00:51:54But from the general tenor of her behavior,
00:51:57there was but little doubt that their intimacy was of a more familiar nature.
00:52:01She became pregnant by this man, but suffered a miscarriage,
00:52:05after which she was institutionalized in a psychiatric facility,
00:52:09where she remained for the rest of her life.
00:52:11Perhaps inspired by this ordeal,
00:52:13Barbara's son, Weaver's great-grandfather,
00:52:17later became a doctor in another psychiatric facility,
00:52:20where patients were treated much more humanely.
00:52:22And get an inkling of what it was based on emotionally is so moving.
00:52:27You know, even though what happened to her was tragic,
00:52:30he, you know, he somehow made good come out of it.
00:52:37Number 12, Scarlett Johansson.
00:52:40I cannot imagine what you must be feeling.
00:52:42Just hell.
00:52:44Must have been hell.
00:52:45It's one thing to hear about your ancestors suffering a tragic fate,
00:52:49but it's an entirely different experience to see the details of their deaths written down.
00:52:54That can bring tears to even the driest eyes.
00:52:57Such was the case for actress Scarlett Johansson,
00:53:00who, in this 2017 episode,
00:53:03discovered the fate of her great-uncle Moisza and his family,
00:53:06who lived in Groyecz, Poland, when World War II began.
00:53:10And I promised myself I wouldn't go her out of it.
00:53:13But it's hard not to.
00:53:14It's hard not to.
00:53:15Moisza and his family were rounded up and taken to the infamous Warsaw ghetto.
00:53:20There, he and at least two of his ten children were killed.
00:53:24Johansson couldn't help but fight back tears,
00:53:27though she was grateful to learn more about her family history,
00:53:29as it deepened her connection to her roots.
00:53:32The fate of one brother versus the other.
00:53:35Yep.
00:53:36It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself.
00:53:39That side of my family.
00:53:42I didn't expect that.
00:53:43Number 11. LL Cool J.
00:53:46Some genetic discoveries are so sensitive
00:53:48that they need to be shared privately first before being revealed on camera.
00:53:52This was the case with LL Cool J.
00:53:55It's a little devastating to know that, you know,
00:54:00the guy that raised me that was so kind to me wasn't my blood.
00:54:03For most of his childhood,
00:54:05the rapper was raised by the people he believed to be his maternal grandparents.
00:54:08Even his mother, Andrea Griffith, thought they were her biological parents.
00:54:14However, a DNA test on finding your roots revealed otherwise.
00:54:17We compared Andrea's DNA to that of her Griffith cousin.
00:54:21If they truly are first cousins, they should share about 12.5% of their DNA,
00:54:25which we would see in red here.
00:54:27But we see nothing.
00:54:29Right. We don't see any red.
00:54:30In reality, Griffith was adopted as an infant,
00:54:33and her adoptive parents, Eugene Griffith and Ellen Hightower,
00:54:37never made that information known to her throughout their lives.
00:54:41Regardless, the revelation didn't change LL Cool J's perception of his adoptive grandparents.
00:54:46If anything, it deepened his love and respect for them.
00:54:50They did so well for us.
00:54:53I have more love and respect for them than I ever did.
00:54:59Number 10. Roseanne Cash
00:55:01In 2021, Roseanne Cash, the daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash,
00:55:06appeared on Finding Your Roots,
00:55:08where she made a particularly interesting discovery.
00:55:11Would you like to meet your DNA cousin?
00:55:12Yes.
00:55:13Okay, please turn the page.
00:55:14Back in 1965, Cash's mother Vivian was targeted by the KKK in a racist campaign.
00:55:21The white supremacist group believed Vivian was black,
00:55:25thus alleging her marriage to Johnny was illegal.
00:55:28She filed for divorce as kind of an ultimatum and wishful thinking,
00:55:32and thinking that maybe if he sees I'm serious, he'll come back.
00:55:37The controversy only died down after the country singer issued a public statement
00:55:42insisting his wife was white.
00:55:44However, on Finding Your Roots,
00:55:47Cash discovered that her mother indeed had African-American heritage.
00:55:51Really?
00:55:51Yep.
00:55:52Vivian's maternal great-great-grandmother was a mixed-race woman named Sarah Shields,
00:55:56who was born into slavery in Alabama.
00:55:59Shields later married a white man and recorded all her children as white in official documents.
00:56:05Number 9. Joe Manganiello
00:56:07Actor Joe Manganiello owes his existence today to the remarkable tenacity of his maternal great-grandmother,
00:56:14Turviz Rose Durakhjan.
00:56:16Joe's grandmother, Sandra, was born in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
00:56:22Her mother, a woman named Rose Durakhjan, was a survivor of the Armenian genocide.
00:56:29Durakhjan was an Armenian woman who was married with eight children.
00:56:33In 1915, during the Armenian genocide, her husband and seven of her children were murdered before her eyes.
00:56:41Durakhjan managed to escape and swam across the Euphrates River with her last surviving child strapped to her back.
00:56:49But tragically, the infant died during the journey.
00:56:52You ready to see what we found?
00:56:53Oh, man.
00:56:54She was then thrown into an internment camp, where she encountered a German soldier named Carl Wilhelm Butinger, who impregnated
00:57:03her.
00:57:03On his paternal side, Manganiello also discovered that the man he believed to be his grandfather, Emilio Manganiello, was not
00:57:11biologically related to him.
00:57:13Close the door, and I open the door, and I'm here in Germany at this time looking at my ancestor
00:57:19that I never knew.
00:57:20Number 8. Tig Notaro.
00:57:22Even before Finding Your Roots, comedian Tig Notaro always knew she was the descendant of a politician.
00:57:28Comedian Tig Notaro grew up knowing that she had a celebrated ancestor.
00:57:33Her great-great-grandfather was John Fitzpatrick, who served as the mayor of New Orleans from 1892 to 1896.
00:57:41But it was on the show that Notaro first learned about her ancestor's upbringing.
00:57:45Register of boys received into the asylum. Name of the boy, John Fitzpatrick. Age when received, 10 years.
00:57:53At the age of 7, Fitzpatrick lost his father and was placed in an orphan asylum alongside two of his
00:58:00brothers.
00:58:01Surprisingly, this wasn't due to their mother's demise, but rather the limited public welfare system,
00:58:06which apparently left her with no choice between trust some of her children to an orphanage.
00:58:11Can you imagine being in Catherine's position and being forced to do that?
00:58:16That's something I don't think I could get through.
00:58:19Fitzpatrick was later reunited with his mother and worked his way up from a newspaper boy to the mayor's office.
00:58:25The only thing that I know about him is just this man in a picture. It's like, hey, he was
00:58:30the mayor. I really, I don't know any of this.
00:58:34Number 7. Edward Norton.
00:58:36While Edward Norton is widely recognized for his roles in several popular Hollywood films,
00:58:42it turns out he may not be the most famous individual in his family tree.
00:58:45Pocahontas is indeed your 12th great-grandmother.
00:58:48Oh my god.
00:58:50In the season 9 premiere of Finding Your Roots, the actor learned that Pocahontas was his 12th great-grandmother,
00:58:57confirming a long-held family lore.
00:58:59Makes you realize what a, what a, what a small, you know, piece of the whole human story you are.
00:59:06But perhaps the most uncomfortable detail uncovered during the episode was the revelation that Norton's third great-grandfather,
00:59:14John Winstead, was a slave owner in North Carolina.
00:59:17While he wouldn't be the first celebrity to make such a discovery, Norton reflected on its disturbing nature,
00:59:23describing it as a, quote, uncomfortable truth that, quote, needs to be acknowledged and, quote, contended with.
00:59:30You know, it is no, it's not a judgment on, on you and your own life,
00:59:35but it's a judgment on the, it's a judgment on the history of this country.
00:59:39Number 6. Fred Armisen.
00:59:42For most of his life, Saturday Night Live alum Fred Armisen believed he was one-quarter Japanese,
00:59:48attributing this to his grandfather, the late Masami Kuni, who hailed from Japan.
00:59:52He would later discover this was all false.
00:59:55So am I Korean?
00:59:59No.
01:00:00Kuni was actually South Korean, originally named Park Young-in,
01:00:04and only assumed a Japanese identity after the 1923 massacre of Koreans in Japan.
01:00:10It definitely, it changes the way I think about myself.
01:00:12But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
01:00:15Armisen also learned that while Kuni lived in Germany in the 1930s and 40s,
01:00:20he engaged in propaganda efforts for the Nazis by entertaining German troops.
01:00:25Additionally, during this period, Kuni apparently also worked as a spy for Japan,
01:00:31gathering intelligence on Southern European and Turkish affairs.
01:00:34He is one of the most clever agents they have.
01:00:37Number 5. Lina Dunham.
01:00:39The 2024 film Treasure stars Lina Dunham as a young woman who visits Poland with her aging father
01:00:45and is forced to confront her family's Holocaust past.
01:00:48When Dunham appeared on Finding Your Roots,
01:00:51she discovered unexpected parallels between her own ancestry and that of her character in the movie.
01:00:56Can you imagine when you were 14, your parents would put you on a boat?
01:00:59No, I can't.
01:01:00It turns out that Dunham's great-great-grandmother, Regina,
01:01:03migrated to America as a teenager,
01:01:05leaving behind nearly a dozen siblings in Europe.
01:01:08Tragically, during World War II, one of Regina's nieces, Ilana,
01:01:13was separated from the rest of her family and sent to the Nazi-occupied city of Kamenyets-Poruliskiy in Ukraine.
01:01:20Ilana is believed to be one of roughly 24,000 Jews who lost their lives there.
01:01:26To see a personal connection to it literalizes it in a way that is, um, that's very, very powerful.
01:01:34Number 4. Joe Madison.
01:01:36Celebrities who appear on Finding Your Roots step into the unknown,
01:01:40unsure of what family secrets might be revealed.
01:01:42While many learn unsettling details about distant ancestors,
01:01:46veteran radio host Joe Madison was confronted with a startling truth about his own father.
01:01:51It was such a shocking discovery that I felt compelled to call Joe at home
01:01:56before our interview to let him know in private, away from any TV cameras.
01:02:02In the Season 5 episode, Madison found out that Felix Madison,
01:02:06whom he had always believed to be his biological father, actually wasn't.
01:02:11I appreciated the, uh, your sincerity and concern.
01:02:17Sensing the sensitivity of the information, host Henry Louis Gates Jr.
01:02:22first called Madison privately to share it with him, away from all the cameras.
01:02:30Madison's appearance on the show also led him to the discovery that his biological grandfather
01:02:35was one of the subjects of the controversial Tuskegee Institute syphilis study.
01:02:40Number 3. Pharrell Williams.
01:02:43For many African Americans, having the chance to read first-hand stories of their ancestors' lives,
01:02:49especially those who were enslaved, is rare.
01:02:52Acclaimed music producer Pharrell Williams got this opportunity
01:02:55when he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2021.
01:02:58I was born on the 18th of December, 1852.
01:03:01I was born on the plantation near Tar River.
01:03:05During the show, Williams was presented with an interview
01:03:08given by his great-great-great-aunt, Jane Arrington,
01:03:11who participated in the Slave Narrative Project in the 1930s.
01:03:15In the interview, Arrington shared detailed accounts of her harrowing experience as an enslaved person.
01:03:21As he read the notes on the program,
01:03:24Williams was deeply moved by the hardships his ancestor was forced to endure.
01:03:28Those words also forced him to confront the cruel reality
01:03:33of what those ancestors actually experienced.
01:03:37He also uncovered the unsettling fact that his great-great-great-grandfather,
01:03:42Fenner Williams, spent the first decade of his life enslaved.
01:03:46It's a lot, man.
01:03:47Oh.
01:03:48I have to say I am forever changed.
01:03:50Number 2.
01:03:51Michael Douglas
01:03:52Throughout his career, actor Michael Douglas has starred in multiple crime thrillers.
01:03:57Yet few of those fictional narratives can match the gripping real-life tales of his own ancestors.
01:04:02Last permanent residence, Chelsea, Russia.
01:04:06Chelsea, Russia. You know who that is?
01:04:09That's your father's uncle.
01:04:10In a 2024 episode of the show, Douglas learned about his grandfather,
01:04:15Harry Danielewicz, and his great-uncle, Moshe,
01:04:18both of whom migrated to the U.S. from Chelsea in present-day Belarus.
01:04:23Before they left for America, both Harry and Moshe were caught up in a life of crime.
01:04:28Anyone who knows the whereabouts of Danielewicz is obliged to inform the court where he is.
01:04:34Harry had been arrested and sent to prison for robbery,
01:04:36while Moshe was implicated in an armed robbery case in 1906,
01:04:40and declared a wanted man in Chelsea.
01:04:44However, it is unclear if he was ever apprehended before he left the country.
01:04:48This is blowing my mind a little bit.
01:04:51This is really blowing my mind.
01:04:52Number 1.
01:04:53Maya Rudolph
01:04:54Like many other celebrities who have appeared on Finding Your Roots,
01:04:58Maya Rudolph aimed to uncover her identity.
01:05:021860 slave census for a man named John Warren Grigsby.
01:05:06Oh my god.
01:05:07Oh my god.
01:05:08Oh my god.
01:05:08Oh my god.
01:05:09I cannot believe I'm looking at this.
01:05:11The SNL alum was curious about her maternal African-American heritage,
01:05:15and was given a glimpse into her ancestry.
01:05:18Through the show, Rudolph discovered her maternal great-great-great-grandfather,
01:05:22James Grigsby, who was born into slavery in Lincoln County, Kentucky.
01:05:27That breaks my heart.
01:05:32Well.
01:05:32A census document from 1860 showed Grigsby listed without a name,
01:05:38but solely by his sex and age, 5.
01:05:41This discovery was deeply unsettling to Rudolph, causing her to break down in tears.
01:05:46Wow.
01:05:47I just can't believe what I'm looking at.
01:05:49She also learned of another maternal ancestor,
01:05:53whose owner's grandson denied him the financial compensation and freedom promised in his owner's will.
01:05:58Fortunately, he took the grandson to court and won.
01:06:02It just makes you feel like you're part of something so much bigger.
01:06:06Which of these discoveries hit you the hardest?
01:06:08Let us know in the comments.
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