Finding your roots can lead to some emotional reveals. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most heart-wrenching discoveries made on this genealogy docuseries that left the celebrity subjects visibly moved.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I feel fortunate. I feel found. This book right here has changed my life.
00:05Welcome to Ms Mojo and today we're counting down our picks for the most heart-wrenching
00:11discoveries made on this genealogy docuseries that left the celebrity subjects visibly moved.
00:20And I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but it's hard not to.
00:25Number 10, Pamela Adlon. Actress Pamela Adlon went on Finding Your Roots in 2022 to validate
00:33a long-held rumor in her family that her mother was the product of an extramarital affair.
00:39It's very hard, the English side, because there are things you don't do.
00:45Yes.
00:46If they have gone to their graves without talking about it,
00:49it's not anybody's business.
00:51Right.
00:52And that's frustrating for me.
00:54Through an arduous research process, the show ultimately confirmed that the rumor was indeed
00:59right. Adlon discovered that her actual grandfather was not the man she had known
01:04all her life. Instead, it was someone else named Joseph Walthew.
01:09Further investigation revealed that Walthew had another daughter named Gloria,
01:14who shared a 25% DNA match with Adlon's mother, making them half-sisters.
01:20Oh my God, this is crazy.
01:28Your mother's got a sister.
01:30Remarkably, Gloria was found to still be alive and well. Adlon was overwhelmed by this revelation
01:37and could not contain her excitement to share the news with her mother.
01:41What's your mom gonna say when she sees that picture?
01:43Freak out. Oh, I can't wait. I just can't.
01:49Yes!
01:50This is awesome.
01:53Claire Danes was named after her paternal grandmother when she was born.
01:58But beyond that, she didn't know much about the other Claire Danes.
02:02I wonder about her a lot. I have a portrait of her that my parents loaned me.
02:10And I stare at it all the time. Who were you?
02:13On a 2023 episode of Finding Your Roots,
02:17Danes discovered that she and her grandmother shared so much in common.
02:21It turned out that her grandmother, like herself, was deeply involved in theater,
02:26directing local productions, and even writing her master's thesis on William Shakespeare.
02:32What's it like for you to see that?
02:34Profound. It's really, really meaningful. It just is.
02:38This connection was particularly poignant for Danes, who had her breakthrough role
02:43in the 1996 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
02:48After years of wondering about her grandmother's life,
02:51learning about their shared passion was enough to bring Danes to tears.
02:56It's kind of amazing. Sorry, it's very provocative, all this.
03:00It is.
03:01Yeah. It's like the most vital stuff, right?
03:04Oh, it is. And it's right there in your family tree. It's just remarkable.
03:09It really is. It really is.
03:11Number eight, Tamira Mowry.
03:13I wonder what she did to escape her current situation.
03:19Right. Mm-hmm.
03:21What were her thoughts of hope?
03:24What's her flights of fancy?
03:26Yes.
03:26The horrors of slavery will forever be agonizing regardless of how many times they are recounted.
03:33For actress Tamira Mowry, it was particularly distressing to find out
03:37about the harrowing ordeal suffered by her third great-grandmother, Margaret Roll,
03:43who was born into slavery in the Bahamas.
03:46At a mere nine years of age, Roll was already listed in an official document
03:51as a field laborer, a reality that was incomprehensible to Mowry.
03:56I know my kids. You want to protect them. You want them to keep that innocence.
04:05Yeah.
04:06But for Margaret...
04:08The actress was further overcome with emotion as she contemplated the unimaginable journey
04:14her ancestor was left to endure to attain freedom following the abolition of slavery.
04:20And she was old enough to be conscious of...
04:22That's yes.
04:23I was this and now there's this.
04:25And that's what I'm feeling right now.
04:28Yeah. Mm-hmm.
04:29You know, just that moment of...
04:32Wow. Oh my goodness. My family is going to flip.
04:37Although African-Americans trace their origins to individuals forcibly brought from Africa,
04:42it is rare to find people who were directly born on the continent in their family lineage.
04:48This is because by the time African-Americans were first identified by name in the 1870
04:55federal census, most of those born in Africa had already passed away.
05:00One of such rare cases occurred with actor Sterling K. Brown.
05:05Birthplace of father, Africa. Birthplace of mother, Africa.
05:12On Finding Your Roots, Brown discovered that his fifth great-grandparents were among the few
05:17native-born Africans who were still alive when the Civil War broke out.
05:21Native-born Africans who were still alive when the census took place.
05:26While their exact country of birth was not specified on the document,
05:31the revelation still had a profound impact on Brown.
05:35When you hear like your friends talk about their German ancestors and their Irish ancestors
05:41and Italian ancestors, like I feel like I'm on the cusp of like, I can join in that conversation.
05:48Number six, Regina King.
05:50You know, I couldn't imagine that six-year-old being alone.
05:54Right.
05:55And you know, seeing it like this and seeing it written just kind of hits differently.
06:01The third great-grandfather of actress and director Regina King was a man named Bob Kane,
06:06who was born into slavery. At a very young age, Kane was treated like a piece of property,
06:12passed among the family members who enslaved him. Reflecting on such a harsh reality,
06:18compared with her own life at the same age, brought King to tears.
06:22At the age of six, I was safe.
06:36Her sorrow eventually turned to joy when she learned that after slavery ended and voting
06:41rights were granted to formerly enslaved people, Kane immediately registered to vote.
06:47Despite being unable to read all rights at the time, Kane was determined to exercise
06:54this fundamental right, which filled King with immense happiness.
06:59He understood the importance of that and what that meant.
07:04And like you said, even though he couldn't read and he couldn't write, he could feel.
07:09Number five, Scarlett Johansson.
07:12It's crazy to imagine that Saul would be on the other side selling bananas.
07:16Oh yeah.
07:17On Ludlow Street.
07:19Yeah.
07:19And how different it would be being in America at that time.
07:23The fate of one brother versus the other.
07:25Scarlett Johansson's roots trace back to Poland and Russia,
07:29with her maternal ancestors migrating to New York City in the early 20th century.
07:34Although Johansson had prior knowledge of this ancestry,
07:38it was on Finding Your Roots that she uncovered the fate of her relatives who remained in Europe.
07:44Her maternal great-grandfather, Saul Schlamberg,
07:48had a brother named Moshech, whom he left behind in Grujitz, Poland.
07:53Moshech was about 60 years old at the time.
07:56He and his wife had 10 children.
07:59Through a document retrieved from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel,
08:04Johansson discovered that Moshech and some of his children lost their lives in the Warsaw ghetto.
08:11This revelation not only made her cry,
08:13but it admittedly also helped her to consider her heritage in a new way.
08:18It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself, that side of my family.
08:24I didn't expect that.
08:26Number four, LeVar Burton.
08:28Roots actor LeVar Burton indeed found out more about his roots when he appeared on the show in 2024.
08:35Can't even explain how it feels to get this information.
08:40It's like there have been pieces of me that have been missing.
08:45They've always been out there somewhere.
08:48For 23 years, Burton hosted the educational series Reading Rainbow on PBS,
08:54becoming an advocate for children's literacy.
08:56On Finding Your Roots, Burton discovered that his passion for education,
09:00which he once attributed solely to his mother,
09:03may have also come from the ancestors of his father, from whom he had been estranged for decades.
09:09So you just met your great-grandfather.
09:11Pearl.
09:12Yeah, Pearl B. Burton.
09:15And he and your grandfather worked in education.
09:18A 1940 Arkansas consensus document revealed that both his grandfather, Aaron C. Burton,
09:25and his great-grandfather, Pearl B. Burton, served as school superintendents.
09:30This struck Burton profoundly,
09:32as he realized how deeply his family's legacy had influenced his own advocacy,
09:38despite not being aware of it initially.
09:41You just opened the door, and the whole room was on the other side of the wall, you know?
09:46No kidding. My reality has shifted.
09:49Yeah, because you thought all of these attributes you got from your mom.
09:52From my mom.
09:52Yeah. That's deep.
09:56Number 3. David Duchovny
09:58The ancestors of actor David Duchovny faced an arduous journey from their homeland
10:04before establishing their roots in the US.
10:07Upon learning that his great-grandfather, Moshe, was born in Russia,
10:10Duchovny was immediately brought to tears.
10:13I don't know what that affects me. He'd come a long way.
10:23It just makes me so sad that I didn't get to meet him, really.
10:27He further discovered that Moshe and his family were part of about 1 million Jews
10:32who left Russia to escape anti-Semitic violence.
10:36However, even after moving to Jaffa in present-day Israel,
10:40the discrimination continued, and they were eventually deported to Egypt.
10:45Newspaper articles from the time indicate that many of Jaffa's Jews
10:50were robbed of all their possessions,
10:53meaning that David's ancestors would have arrived in Egypt with nothing.
10:57Moshe and his father ultimately sailed to the United States and settled in New York.
11:02Their resilience in seeking a better home and securing a stable future for their descendants
11:08deeply touched Duchovny and left him with a sense of pride.
11:12They ran and they ran and they got somewhere. You know, they didn't give up.
11:20Before the Civil War, only a small fraction of black people living in America were not
11:25enslaved. One of them was Wiley Wharton,
11:28who happens to be the third great-grandfather of comedian Tracy Morgan.
11:33Did you ever imagine that somebody in your family line
11:36was free before the Civil War, before the Emancipation Proclamation?
11:47Good for you, Grandpa.
11:48This fact came to light because Wharton was listed by name in the 1860 census.
11:55For Morgan, the revelation that his ancestor didn't have to endure being enslaved
12:00brought him a mixed feeling of relief and intense emotion.
12:04I'm free when I'm on stage. I feel free.
12:07When I'm on stage doing my comedy, I feel free. I know it came from you.
12:12However, although Wharton was free, his wife Judy and their children were still in slavery.
12:18Fast forward a decade after the practice had been abolished,
12:22records indicate that Wharton, Judy, and their children all remained together
12:27and learned to read and write.
12:28All the children stayed with them?
12:30Yeah, they all stayed with them.
12:31The Wharton family stayed together through slavery and freedom and reconstruction.
12:36Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get
12:40notified about our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos
12:45or all of them. If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
12:521. Pharrell Williams
12:54I don't want to cry, and I'm trying not to be angry.
12:59You're not a machine. This is horrendous. What else can you feel? It's horrible.
13:07It's intense, sir.
13:08Few African Americans have gotten the opportunity to trace their enslaved ancestors,
13:14and even fewer are lucky enough to read their first-hand testimonies.
13:19In a 2021 episode of Finding Your Roots, acclaimed musician Pharrell Williams
13:25was introduced to his great-great-great aunt, Jane Arrington.
13:30Arrington was a participant in the Slave Narratives Project in the 1930s
13:35and provided a detailed account of her years spent living as an enslaved person.
13:40I was born on the plantation near Tar River.
13:44My mother was named Louisa May, and my father was named Louis May.
13:51My mother had six children, four boys and two girls.
13:54Through her words, Williams gained insight into her harrowing experiences and was able
14:00to reflect on the hardship that she and many others like her were forced to endure.
14:05He also discovered that Arrington's brother, Fenner Williams, his great-great-grandfather,
14:11spent the first decade of his life enslaved.
14:14It puts a very vivid, intense context behind what it means to be African American.
14:26And I thank God that I got to hear it when I'm so sorry they went through this.
14:31What other harrowing Finding Your Roots revelations did we miss?
14:36Trace them out in the comments below.
14:38It fills me with great pride that I have inherited this mantle of educator.
14:43Do you agree with our picks?
14:45Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo.
14:47And be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.