Finding Your Roots: The Official Companion to the PBS Series

by Henry Louis Gates, David Altshuler (Foreword by)

Overview

Who are we, and where do we come from? The fundamental drive to answer these questions is at the heart of Finding Your Roots, the companion book to the PBS documentary series seen by 30 million people. As Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. shows us, the tools of cutting-edge genomics and deep genealogical research now allow us to learn more about our roots, looking further back in time than ever before. Gates's investigations take on the personal and genealogical histories of more than twenty luminaries, including United States Congressman John Lewis, actor Robert Downey Jr., CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, President of the "Becoming American Institute" Linda Chavez, and comedian Margaret Cho. Interwoven with their moving stories of immigration, assimilation, strife, and success, Gates provides practical information for amateur genealogists just beginning archival research on their own families' roots, and he details the advances in genetic research now available to the public. The result is an illuminating exploration of who we are, how we lost track of our roots, and how we can find them again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469626147
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Edition description:	Media Tie
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	485,449
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Foreword David Altshuler ix

Chapter 1 Genetic Gumbo Branford Marsalis Harry Connick Jr. 1

Chapter 2 The Long Arc of Freedom John Lewis Cory Booker 21

Chapter 3 What's in a Name? Barbara Walters Geoffrey Canada 45

Chapter 4 Redemption Kyra Sedgwick Kevin Bacon 73

Chapter 5 The Children of Abraham Rick Warren Angela Buchdahl Yasir Qadhi 95

Chapter 6 From the Old World to the New Robert Downey Jr Maggie Gyllenhaal 143

Chapter 7 Shadows Samuel L. Jackson Condoleezza Rice Ruth Simmons 165

Chapter 8 Crossings Margaret Cho Sanjay Gupta Martha Stewart 205

Chapter 9 Neither Slave nor Free Wanda Sykes John Legend Margarett Cooper 239

Chapter 10 In the Footsteps of Conquistadors Michelle Rodriguez Linda Chavez Adrian Grenier 279

Acknowledgments 315

Index 319

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An accessible and engaging book, Finding Your Roots is a veritable how-to guide for readers to explore their own past. Henry Louis Gates Jr. brings a wealth of genealogical research expertise to his interviews, which are witty, knowledgeable, and touching, made more so by the fact that Gates himself enters the stories, changing places with the interviewees to reveal something of his own personal experience. Throughout, Gates imbues the stories with a kind of intimacy that speaks to all of us in our personal journeys searching for our own histories. There's nothing else quite like it.—Ira Berlin, University of Maryland



Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I headed? These are all fundamental questions to which every human being, regardless of race, gender or background, wants answers. Professor Gates provides these answers to the people he profiles, but [Finding Your Roots] also encourage[s] viewers to explore their own family histories so they can know more about themselves.—Cal Thomas, Washington Examiner

Editorial Reviews

Of interest to avid genealogy buffs.--Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

11/01/2014
Gates provides practical information for beginning genealogists and recounts stories of celebrity ancestry, from John Lewis to Robert Downey Jr.

Library Journal

2014-07-16
The latest from redoubtable historian Gates (African-American Research/Harvard Univ.; Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008, 2011, etc.) is not, despite the title, about finding your roots. A companion text to the popular PBS series, and following his similar Faces of America (2010), it's about finding the roots of 25 American notables of diverse ethnicity. From Branford Marsalis to Wanda Sykes, Sanjay Gupta to Harry Connick Jr., Cory Booker to Barbara Walters, the histories are uniformly told. The author introduces the subject of each inquiry with a concise biography and some apt words from the honoree. There follows the parade of progenitors discovered through oral history and documents like immigration records, realty transactions and census rolls. Experts were often enlisted. Finally, DNA was used to trace genealogy, sometimes back to the Ice Age. It appears that Martha Stewart is descended from craftspeople, and through the veins of Robert Downey Jr. flows a bit of Jewish blood. As many readers will suspect, climbing the family trees of these famous figures proves that many of us are related—perhaps not even six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon (his ancestry goes back to Edward I, and Brad Pitt is Bacon's 13th cousin twice removed). Throughout these family tapestries are a variety of common threads—e.g., poverty, name changes and mistreatment. Integral to the nation's history are the sorry annals of slavery as narrated by Gates in the African-Americans' case studies. Their stories are particularly moving. Unfortunately, the TV format proves static on the printed page. Despite the persecuted emigrants, the tycoons, the slave masters and all the other colorful ancestral characters populating Gates' passionate research, the individual tales rarely spring to life. Other subjects in the collection include Rick Warren, Condoleezza Rice, John Legend and Adrian Grenier. Primarily of interest to avid genealogy buffs.

Kirkus Reviews