In the new season of the Emmy® nominated series, nineteen celebrity guests sit down with Dr. Gates, Jr. to dive into their ancestral history and solve mysteries that have plagued their families.
Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI app.
Gates and his team use genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis to trace the family trees of twenty compelling guests, telling stories that illuminate America’s fundamental diversity. In addition to the all-star line-up, Gates will have his own familial mystery solved when the tables are turned and the celebrated host becomes a guest on an eagerly anticipated episode of the new season.
As the pages turn in each guest’s book of life, emotional revelations give way to complex questions about identity. Through Gates’ discerning touch, his guests learn what every family history shares—love, courage, and sacrifice—and how our histories transcend borders, merging to form an American root system fortified by its diversity. Along the way, viewers are transported from coastal Africa to the Mississippi Delta; from shtetls in the former Russian Empire to the ancestral lands of the Lakota Nation; from villages in the Philippines to a pirate enclave in Puerto Rico—all in search of the stories that will bring our guests’ ancestors to life. What’s more, this new season also includes a special reveal: the solution to a mystery that has haunted Gates’ own family for generations.
Upcoming episodes feature:
1/28: Actor Sharon Stone and model Chrissy Teigen
2/4: Celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean Sherman
2/11: Musician Rubén Blades and journalist Natalie Morales
2/18: Actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard
2/25: Actors Debra Messing and Melanie Lynskey (
4/1: Historian Lonnie Bunch and actor Sheryl Lee Ralph
4/8: Actor Laurence Fishburne and host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Past episodes:
1/7: Actors Lea Salonga and Amanda Seyfried
1/14: Talk show host Joy Behar and actor Michael Imperioli
1/21: Novelist Amy Tan and poet Rita Dove
Photo: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Credit: PBS