Henry louis gates jr. Hosts 'finding your roots' on pbs

Thanks to an encounter with a family scrapbook at a young age, ancestry fascinates Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Emmy-winning filmmaker, author and Harvard University professor raised in the

tiny town of Piedmont, West Virginia. As the host of the hit show _Finding Your Roots_, now in its sixth season on PBS, he helps guests like Ava DuVernay, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Angela

Bassett discover the stories — and the secrets — their family trees contain. Gates, 69, spoke with AARP about the early days of _Finding Your Roots_, the importance of knowing one's

ancestry and the childhood revelation that sparked his passion for genealogy in the first place. YOU'VE HOSTED _Finding Your Roots_ SINCE THE BEGINNING. HOW DID THE SHOW COME ABOUT? I

started _Finding Your Roots_ in 2005, and I only included African American guests. If you go back, it was called _African American Lives_. At the time, there was a new method of using

genetics that could trace African Americans’ ancestry back to Africa on their mother's mother's side using mitochondrial DNA. A black geneticist, Dr. Rick Kittles, contacted me and

told me about this exciting new scientific development. He was looking for prominent African Americans to be guinea pigs, and unbeknownst to him, I had been interested — more than

interested, obsessed — with my own family tree since I was 9 years old. John Lamparski/WireImage HOW TO WATCH • WHAT: _Finding Your Roots_, now in its 6th season on PBS. Its predecessor, 

_African American Lives_, aired four episodes in 2006, a special in 2007 and four episodes in 2008 • WHEN: 8 p.m. ET Tuesdays on PBS, check your local listing to confirm; or on demand •

WHERE: Streaming on Amazon Prime, iTunes, and members-only PBS Passport. Also available on DVD from PBS.org. _African American Lives 2_ is available streaming on Amazon Prime; DVDs of the

2006 and 2008 seasons available on Amazon WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU WERE 9? It was the day we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. After the funeral, my father took my

brother and me upstairs in his parents’ house and showed us his father's scrapbooks. After going through six or seven of these scrapbooks, he found the 1888 obituary of the oldest Gates

we've ever been able to trace: Jane Gates. He had us look at this obituary and it said: “Died this day in Cumberland, Maryland, Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman.” And then he

showed us her picture, and he said she was a slave; she had been a midwife. He said, “I never want you to forget her name or her image." That night, the last thing I did before I went

to bed was look up the word “estimable” in the dictionary because I didn't know what it meant. And then I thought, _Wow, that funny-looking lady is estimable. Maybe I'm estimable,

too_. The next day, July 3, 1960, I did my family tree. I interviewed my parents in front of our little black-and-white TV set. I only traced my father's side and my mom's side, I

didn't know anything about your mother's father's mother's side. I just wanted to know how I was related to this lady who was a slave. THE IMPACT OF SLAVERY CAN MAKE

TRACING ONE'S ANCESTRY PARTICULARLY MEANINGFUL FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS. WHY IS THAT? It's important because that knowledge was systematically taken away from us.