“Am I not a Roberts?” asks guest Julia Roberts when Dr. Henry Louis Gates reveals an illegitimacy in the actress’s bloodline on the season premiere of Finding Your Roots. In what the actress calls “a very unexpected turn,” her true family name is identified. Gates also confirms a story about her maternal roots in Sweden by tracing the lineage back almost 300 years.
Guest Edward Norton “came to me knowing more about his roots than any guest I can recall,” admits Gates. “I was worried we might not be able to uncover anything new.” But the show’s genealogists found the long-forgotten story about a murdered ancestor, as well as details about a Civil War-era great-grandfather—also named Edward Norton—of working class roots who became a wealthy iron manufacturer. The actor is stunned to hear that a passed-down story about his descent from a famous American (which he had dismissed as a family legend) is fully documented.
Finding Your Roots airs Tuesday, January 3, 2023, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.