Lea Salonga, Sheryl Lee Ralph, & More Join FINDING YOUR ROOTS Season 11

In the new season of the Emmy® nominated series FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., nineteen celebrity guests will sit down with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to dive into their ancestral history and solve mysteries that have plagued their families when the series returns January 7 on PBS. 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. 

Season Ten of FINDING YOUR ROOTS recently received the series’ first ever Emmy® nomination in the category Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special. 

Over the course of ten new episodes, 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.

Season 11 episode guest pairings will be: 

• January 7 “Larger Than Life” - actors Lea Salonga (“Mulan”) and Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout”)
• January 14 “La Famiglia” - talk show host Joy Behar and actor Michael Imperioli (“The White Lotus”)
• January 21 “Stranger Than Fiction” - novelist Amy Tan and poet Rita Dove
• January 28 “Dreamers One and All” - actor Sharon Stone (“Basic Instinct”) and model Chrissy Teigen
• February 4 “Family Recipes” - celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean Sherman
• February 11 “Latin Roots” - musician Rubén Blades and journalist Natalie Morales
• February 18 “The Ties That Bind” - actors Kristen Bell (“The Good Place”) and Dax Shepard (“Parenthood”) 
• February 25 “The Butterfly Effect” - actors Debra Messing (”Will & Grace”) and Melanie Lynskey (“Yellowjackets”)
• April 1 “Moving on Up” - historian Lonnie Bunch and actor Sheryl Lee Ralph (“Abbott Elementary”)
• April 8 “Finding My Roots” - actor Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix”) and host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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.

At the center of it all, guiding every discovery, is host, writer and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. 

“Our ancestors' genetic legacies cascade down the branches of our family trees informing who we are," said Gates. "As FINDING YOUR ROOTS enters its eleventh season, the team and I cherish deeply the bond we have with our guests and viewers to explore the history we have in common through personal stories of those who have shaped our world, one generation to the next. It's a special honor to have our home on PBS, and we can't wait to share this season's amazing slate of guests with our audience."

Assembling the extensive family trees and ancestral narratives alongside Dr. Gates are DNA expert CeCe Moore (chief genetic genealogist for Parabon Nanolabs and host of ABC’s THE GENETIC DETECTIVE) and genealogists Nick Sheedy, Kimberly N. Morgan, and Akosua Moore, who together have solved hundreds of mysteries and reconnected innumerable lost relatives over the past two decades. 

Throughout the first ten seasons of the acclaimed series, Gates and his team have made life-changing discoveries for many celebrity guests. Highlights include finding the long-lost biological family of Andy Samberg’s mother (who had been adopted); Pamela Adlon learning the identity of her maternal grandfather; LL Cool J learning that his mother had been adopted (something she had not known); and Rebecca Hall learning of her maternal grandfather’s African American background, which he had kept hidden (a discovery that inspired Hall’s directorial debut, “Passing”). 

In addition to the hundreds of familial information uncovered for the notable guests, dozens of celebrity DNA connections have been made throughout the show’s ten seasons, often a fan favorite part of the series. Memorable connections include Julia Roberts and Edward Norton; Larry David and Bernie Sanders; Michael Douglas and Scarlett Johansen; Bill Hader and Carol Burnett; Cory Booker and RuPaul; and Marisa Tomei and Julianne Moore. Watch the trailer for the new season below.

FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Season 11 is a production of McGee Media, Inkwell Media, and Kunhardt Films, in association with WETA Washington, D.C.. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the writer, host, and executive producer. Dyllan McGee and Peter Kunhardt are executive producers. Sabin Streeter is the senior producer. Natalia Warchol is the series producer. Deborah Clancy Porfido is the supervising producer. Kevin Burke is the producer. Robert L. Yacyshyn and Leslie Brown are line producers. Sam Hartley is the coordinating producer.  Sabin Streeter and Krista Whetstone are directors.

Corporate support for Season 11 of FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. is provided by Gilead Sciences, Inc., Ancestry® and Johnson & Johnson. Major support is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Support is also provided by Ford Foundation; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Candace KING Weir; the Inkwell Society; and by public television viewers.

Lea Salonga Photo credit: Bruce Glikas

Sheryl Lee Ralph Photo credit: Walter McBride

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