New York – For 11 seasons, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. He has sat in front of his guests in the popular PBS series “Find your roots” and led them through secrets in their family tree. Tuesday, it’s his turn.
The Harvard academic learns a puzzle of her great -great grandmother, Jane Gates, information that reveals her ancestry and opens a new branch that goes back to Ireland.
“They moved my tears,” Gates tells The Associated Press before the transmission. “He used to pass his grave in the plot of the doors in the Cemetery of Rose Hill and would say: ‘grandmother, I’m going to you. I’m going to tell your secret to the world.'”
“Finding Your Roots” is the most watched PBS program on linear TV and the program without more transmitted drama. Season 10 reached almost 18 million people on linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination.
“The two subliminal messages of ‘Finding Your Roots’, which are needed more urgently today than ever, is that what has made the United States great is that we are a nation of immigrants,” says Gates. “And secondly, at the level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we are 99.99% equal.”
Season 11 has presented Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, Melanie Lynskey, Jose Andres chef, Sharon Stone and Amanda Seyfried, Who learned why his third paternal great -great grandfather was killed.
Gates shares the last episode with Laurence Fishburne, who learns the identity of his biological father. It turns out that both men worshiped jazz, which delighted Dyllan McGee, who helped create and produce “find their roots.”
“He stressed how family connections can shape us, even without knowing it, and made me ask me if he reconnects with our past in some way affirms the importance of our own stories showing us how much each individual in our tree gives us shape even when we do not know,” he says.
The series began in 2006 under the title of “African -American lives”, conceived by Gates in the middle of the night in his bathroom. He invited prominent black celebrities and tracked his family trees in slavery. When the paper trail was over, DNA would use to see which ethnic group were in Africa.
Challenged by a spectator to open the program to non -black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was called “Faces of America”, which had to change again after the name was taken. Along the way, Gates had an intensive DNA course.
“For a guy with a doctorate in English literature, I think I can do it quite well in the AP genetic exam,” he says, before demonstrating it with an exhaustive explanation of autosomal DNA.
Over the years, the program has delivered fascinating results, such as when Natalie Morales discovered that she is related to one of the legendary Pirates of the Caribbean and when the former “Saturday Night Live star” Andy Samberg found her biological grandmother and grandfather. He revealed that Rupaul and American Senator Cory Booker They are cousins, like Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria.
The guests have included the former president of the House of the United States Paul Ryan, director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, designer Diane von Furstenberg and the author of “Game of Thrones” George Rr Martin.
“I always tell my guests that you are not responsible for the follies that your ancestors made. I don’t care what they did. The fault is not inheritable,” says Gates. “You have to understand how people worked in the past without judging them.”
He and his team, particularly the genetic geneticist Cece Moore, have discovered that traditional family stories transmitted through generations are often full of some lies, often to cover bad behavior.
“I call it where there is smoke, there is fire. The stories are never precise, but they are often close,” says Gates. “There is a really nucleus there.”
He took the researchers for four years to resolve the mystery of who was Gates’ great -grandfather, the man who permeated Jane Gates. The story he told about his children’s father turned out to be correct.
The researchers show her an obituary of 1888 for her and a 1839 ad for sale. Gates comments that he has seen a sales bill like this, but this hit differently. In the end, look at Jane Gates again. “I see a lot of pain in those eyes and now I know why.”
“Something changed for him that day,” says McGee. “I remember that it called me after revelation saying: ‘That was the best day of my life!’ It was a pleasure for the whole team to be able to give him the gift of a lost link in his family history that has given hundreds of our guests. “
Gates is a great defender that everyone should have their genealogical tree tracked and supports the idea that digging up the past is divisive.
“I think that knowing our ancestors is essential to know about ourselves,” he says. “The only way to deal with the past is to know about the past.”
“In terms of people who would pretend that the past is irrelevant and we need to look forward, William Faulkner wrote: ‘The past is never dead. It is not even passed,” Gates adds. “It is still with us, giving both who we are as society and our norms under which we work.”
