On the TV series Finding Your Roots, host Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. presents “Coming to America,” telling the stories of three guests whose ancestors immigrated to American shores in search of a better life.
CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell learns the truth behind the story of her grandfather’s being a “stowaway” immigrant to the U.S. from Ireland and how it jeopardized her grandmother’s citizenship status. Fashion designer Zac Posen, famous for his red-carpet gowns, knew little about his Jewish ancestors beyond their Eastern European background. He discovers that his relatives made their living in the clothing industry in the Russian Empire. “You took the thing that your family had done to survive and made it into an art form,” Gates tells Posen. Politician Nancy Pelosi, daughter of the first Italian American elected mayor of Baltimore, is surprised when Gates reveals that her family came to the U.S. a generation earlier than she thought.
This episode ends with one more surprise. “When we compared our guests’ DNA to the DNA of other people who tested over the course of this series,” says Gates, “we found a significant match…a relative whose identity astonished even me.”
“Coming to America” premieres Tuesday, January 12, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.
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