Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides twenty-one influential guests deep into the branches of their family trees, revealing surprising stories of forgotten ancestors that transcend borders, illuminating an American root system fortified by its diversity.

André Leon Talley and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discussed how his great-great-grandfather’s bequeathment from a slave owner to his child was similar to how a car or piano would get passed down in a will.

When Amy Carlson's sixth great-grandfather died in battle after 26 years in the Swedish military, one of his son's replaced him in service. Here, Amy admires the stoicism it must have taken for her sixth-great-grandmother to accept her son's decision.

Fashion icon and Francophile André Leon Talley was pleased to discover that his grandfather was stationed in France when he served in World War I.

André Leon Talley’s fashion muse was none other than his grandmother. He said that she was a domestic worker for 50 years, but she “rose to her regality every Sunday when she put on that hat.”

In 1880, divorce in New York City was so exceedingly rare (only 0.2%!) that the divorce of Erin Burnett’s great-great-grandfather from his first wife made headlines in several newspapers.

"That’s how life happens sometimes, right? Totally by accident.” Amy Carlson reacts to learning about the adorable way her great-great-grandparents met while immigrating from Sweden.

“It’s pretty amazing. From another country, another place, and yet tied directly to me." Erin Burnett reads the baptism record of her great-grandmother, who was born shortly after the great potato famine in Ireland.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. journeys with Erin Burnett, Amy Carlson and André Leon Talley, three guests from diverse backgrounds, as they meet the ancestors who laid the groundwork for their success.

Regina King reads a will from 1851 and learns her third-great grandfather was bequeathed from one generation of slaveholders to the next.

Damon Lindelof reads an account of the atrocities committed by Nazi troops in 1941 when they invaded Bialystok, Poland, the hometown of his relatives, and created a Jewish ghetto.

"It's somewhat an affirmation of survival, in some strange way." Damon Lindelof learns that the World Holocaust Remembrance Center documents the killing of an entire family of his relatives by Nazis in the ghettos of Bialystok, Poland.

“Even though he couldn’t read, and he couldn’t write, he could feel.” Regina King sheds tears of joy while reading the voter registration card of her third-great-grandfather, who registered only two years after slavery ended.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. guides Regina King and Damon Lindelof, the creative forces behind a visionary television series, as they discover that they have more in common than meets the eye.

After hearing the dollar amount that some of his enslaved ancestors were appraised for at an auction, Leslie Odom, Jr. says that "to honor their presence and to honor the fact that they lived and that they weren't things... is deeply meaningful."

Nathan Lane, who was born Joseph Lane, explains how the stage name he had to pick to join the Actors’ Equity Union was inspired by the character Nathan Detriot from Guys and Dolls, one of his favorite roles.

Leslie Odom, Jr. wanted to be in the room where it happened – and he was! Here, he shares the impact his role as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton: The Musical” had on his life and how groundbreaking the play was in promoting colorblind casting on Broadway.

Leslie Odom, Jr. wrestles with the realization that his 5th great-grandfather was a white slave owner after reading the will in which he bequeathed some of his belongings to his “illegitimate, colored” children.

Leslie Odom, Jr. looks over a ship's manifest that could document his great-grandfather's arrival in the U.S. as a ship's crewman from England in 1920.

Nathan Lane gets the disturbing news that his great-great-grandfather died while living in a workhouse, an arcane system of labor in the UK that was basically a factory that exchanged dorms and food for hard labor. You literally lived at work.