A dark family secret is waiting to be revealed. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most disturbing revelations celebrities uncovered about their ancestry on “Finding Your Roots.”
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00:00We were able to restore them, tracing her roots back 12 generations, to the mid-1500s.
00:08Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most disturbing revelations
00:14celebrities uncovered about their ancestry on Finding Your Roots.
00:18I've always heard such terrible stories about him, I really have, and I didn't know any of this.
00:23I had no idea he served time.
00:26Number 20. Alanis Morissette.
00:29Canadian rock artist Alanis Morissette didn't learn about her Jewish ancestry until she was in her late 20s.
00:36Why do you think no one told you?
00:38I think there was a terror that is in their bones, and they were being protective of us and just not wanting anti-Semitism,
00:46so they were doing it to protect us.
00:49On Finding Your Roots, she uncovered even more details about that side of her family,
00:54particularly the fate of her great-uncles, Georgie and Sandor Fierstein.
00:59Both men disappeared during the Holocaust, leaving their family with no answers.
01:04Can you imagine what that was like for your grandfather, carrying that burden?
01:07Not knowing where your sibling is, if they're alive or dead.
01:10Yeah, having no closure, no finality.
01:13No. God.
01:14However, using records at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the show's team dug up those answers.
01:22They discovered that the brothers had been sent to work camps in Russia, where they tragically lost their lives.
01:28Morissette found this especially heartbreaking,
01:31as her grandfather, who escaped the same fate as his brothers and moved to Canada,
01:36passed away without ever knowing what happened to them.
01:39I mean, it's one thing to have a family rumor that they disappeared, but now we know why they disappeared.
01:44Yeah, now my mother and my grandmother, we didn't get into this.
01:47Number 19. Jordan Peele
01:50I mean, you gotta think that, you know, knowing that this could happen, you go your entire life, or your child's entire life, fearing this day.
01:59One often overlooked consequence of the slave trade was the separation of families.
02:04Fathers never seeing their kids again, young children forced to grow up on their own.
02:09That unfortunate fate befell filmmaker Jordan Peele's great-great-grandmother, Alvania.
02:15In 1860, when she was just 12 years old, Alvania was taken away from her parents and brother,
02:21and sold into slavery for $1,250.
02:25It's crazy, and you wonder what that does to the psychology of a family.
02:36While reflecting on what effect such an experience could have on the psyche of Alvania and her family,
02:41Peele felt a mix of pain and pride.
02:44He recognized the psychological trauma they must have endured as a result,
02:49and how that may have been passed down through generations.
02:52And, you know, I wonder if there's some kind of deep-seated connection,
02:58and the idea of you can be a family even if you're apart.
03:05Number 18. Lisa Ling
03:07We found a very different kind of story.
03:10A story not of family secrets, but rather of a family in terrible danger.
03:16In December 1941, during World War II, Japan invaded Hong Kong,
03:22beginning a nearly four-year military occupation that led to widespread starvation and countless deaths.
03:29To escape the famine and brutality of Japanese rule, many residents fled on foot to China.
03:35One of them was journalist Lisa Ling's grandmother,
03:38who wrote a book about her harrowing experience making that journey.
03:42We had already marched three days, putting in about 15 miles each day.
03:47My shoes were in terrible condition with the soles worn through.
03:51Broken blisters on my feet caused much pain and discomfort.
03:55After each rest, I had to clench my teeth in order to hoist myself up from the bench to start walking again.
04:01Ling had actually read the book years earlier,
04:04but seeing it again on the show, she was able to re-examine it with a more mature perspective.
04:09She was clearly struck by the immense resilience and strength her grandmother showed
04:14in embarking on that journey while carrying her family on her back, literally.
04:18I had no idea that they went into China.
04:21I had no idea. I can't even imagine how she was able to do it.
04:25Number 17. Justina Machado
04:28Justina, this is a court record we located in the General Archives in Puerto Rico.
04:32It concerns a prison sentence handed down on May 9th, 1939.
04:36The freedoms enjoyed by queer people in some parts of the world today are the result of long, hard-fought battles.
04:43Few things highlight the significance of these struggles as clearly as cases like this.
04:48On season six of Finding Your Roots, actress Justina Machado discovered a surprising part of her grandfather's past.
04:56The people of Puerto Rico versus Ismael Figueroa Machado and Francisco Perez Luciano. Crime against nature.
05:05In his youth, he was sent to the Rio Piedra State Penitentiary,
05:09one of the most notorious Caribbean prisons, for having sexual relations with another man.
05:15At the time, this was considered a crime in the eyes of the law,
05:18one that attracted even more prison time for her grandfather while he was already incarcerated.
05:23I mean, he didn't have bendito.
05:26Didn't have a chance.
05:27No, it's so sad. I mean, you know, yeah.
05:30Number 16. Wes Studi
05:33Between 1830 and 1850, the U.S. government forcibly displaced around 60,000 indigenous Americans from their ancestral homelands
05:43in what became known as the Trail of Tears.
05:46And I know it's gotta be painful.
05:49Well, we've lived with that pain for a long time.
05:53This ethnic cleansing left scars that have impacted generations of Native Americans, including actor Wes Studi.
06:00When he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2024, Studi learned of his maternal third great-grandmother, Big Nancy,
06:07who was among those forced to leave their home in Georgia and suffer a grueling journey to Oklahoma.
06:13I've been to some of the places that she passed through.
06:19Hmm.
06:21I've been to many of these places, seen them.
06:25Years after the harrowing ordeal, Nancy filed a claim for compensation,
06:30seeking $187 for the properties white settlers had taken from her.
06:35Studi reflected on the deep pain this history carries, acknowledging the lasting effects it has had on his people.
06:42Well, it pisses me off. It always has, but it's more succinct.
06:50Now I know where it was, and I wonder if the people are still there who took over her place.
06:56Number 15, Jeff Daniels.
06:58During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, one of the few men convicted of witchcraft and executed was Samuel Wardwell.
07:07Samuel Wardwell saith that at that time when the devil appeared and told him he was a prince of the air,
07:16that then he signed his book by making a mark like a square with a black pen.
07:21Wardwell was a self-professed fortune teller whose practices apparently drew suspicions of the occult among the locals and led to his conviction.
07:30One of the people who testified against him was Captain Thomas Chandler, the eighth great-grandfather of actor Jeff Daniels.
07:38Now, according to scholars with whom we spoke, your ancestor's testimony in this trial is fairly mild,
07:44but this was not his only involvement in the affair.
07:49Daniels learned this unsettling fact on Finding Your Roots,
07:53where he also discovered that Chandler testified against another accused witch, Mary Parker.
07:59Unlike Wardwell, Parker was Chandler's neighbor and peer,
08:03yet he believed she was using sorcery on his daughter and granddaughter, which prompted his testimony.
08:09I would like to think that it wasn't just something he did to enjoy,
08:13that it was something that he actually believed in, but that doesn't make it a bit better.
08:17Number 14, Eliza Schlesinger.
08:20When you look at pictures from history of atrocities committed against your people in particular,
08:28there's always that pull, but I never thought I had any actual connection because I didn't know any of the history.
08:36It was abstract.
08:37Yes.
08:38Although she had always been aware of her Jewish heritage,
08:40comedian Eliza Schlesinger never knew she had a direct link to the Holocaust
08:45until she appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2024.
08:49In the episode, Schlesinger learned that while her great-grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Poland before the Holocaust,
08:56she left behind at least two brothers.
08:59One of them, Lipa, was a textile dealer who was forced into a ghetto in Mława after the Nazis invaded.
09:06I know that feeling when your sibling's in danger and you feel helpless,
09:09especially from like an ocean away.
09:12So I can't begin to imagine this.
09:17I don't think I want to.
09:19He was later sent to Auschwitz, where he tragically lost his life.
09:23This revelation brought Schlesinger to tears as she confronted both the atrocities that her ancestor endured
09:29as well as her newfound connection to the Holocaust.
09:32It was already so real.
09:37And so now it's palpable.
09:45Award-winning actress Sigourney Weaver came to Finding Your Roots hoping to uncover a juicy scandal in her ancestral line.
09:52What she found, however, was far darker than she expected.
09:56I see.
09:57But where's Barbara? Where's Josiah's wife, your great-great-grandmother?
10:01I don't know. Did she die?
10:03Well, remember, it said that he's married. So if she had died, he would be a widower.
10:07But she's just not there.
10:08Using census records from 1871, the show's researchers discovered that Weaver's great-great-grandparents,
10:15Josiah and Barbara Hunt, were living apart despite having a child together.
10:20Barbara had moved in with another man, whom Josiah accused her of having an affair with.
10:25After the separation, Mrs. Hunt went to reside at Reading with the correspondent, ostensibly as his housekeeper.
10:33But from the general tenor of her behavior, there was but little doubt that their intimacy was of a more familiar nature.
10:40She became pregnant by this man, but suffered a miscarriage, after which she was institutionalized in a psychiatric facility
10:48where she remained for the rest of her life.
10:50Perhaps inspired by this ordeal, Barbara's son, Weaver's great-grandfather,
10:55later became a doctor in another psychiatric facility, where patients were treated much more humanely.
11:01Again, an inkling of what it was based on emotionally is so moving.
11:06You know, even though what happened to her was tragic, he, you know, he somehow made good come out of it.
11:1612. Scarlett Johansson
11:18I cannot imagine what you must be feeling. Just… hell must have been hell.
11:24It's one thing to hear about your ancestors suffering a tragic fate,
11:28but it's an entirely different experience to see the details of their deaths written down.
11:33That can bring tears to even the driest eyes.
11:36Such was the case for actress Scarlett Johansson, who, in this 2017 episode,
11:42discovered the fate of her great-uncle Moishe and his family, who lived in Grojec, Poland, when World War II began.
11:49And I promised myself I wouldn't hurt her.
11:52But it's hard not to.
11:53It's hard not to.
11:54Moishe and his family were rounded up and taken to the infamous Warsaw Ghetto.
11:59There, he and at least two of his ten children were killed.
12:03Johansson couldn't help but fight back tears,
12:06though she was grateful to learn more about her family history, as it deepened her connection to her roots.
12:11The fate of one brother versus the other.
12:14Yeah.
12:15It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself, that side of my family.
12:20I didn't expect that.
12:22Number 11. LL Cool J
12:25Some genetic discoveries are so sensitive that they need to be shared privately first before being revealed on camera.
12:32This was the case with LL Cool J.
12:34It's a little devastating to know that, you know, the guy that raised me, that was so kind to me, wasn't my blood.
12:42For most of his childhood, the rapper was raised by the people he believed to be his maternal grandparents.
12:48Even his mother, Andrea Griffith, thought they were her biological parents.
12:53However, a DNA test on Finding Your Roots revealed otherwise.
12:57We compared Andrea's DNA to that of her Griffith cousin.
13:00If they truly are first cousins, they should share about 12.5% of their DNA, which we would see in red here.
13:06But we see nothing.
13:07Right, we don't see any red.
13:09In reality, Griffith was adopted as an infant, and her adoptive parents, Eugene Griffith and Ellen Hightower,
13:16never made that information known to her throughout their lives.
13:20Regardless, the revelation didn't change LL Cool J's perception of his adoptive grandparents.
13:26If anything, it deepened his love and respect for them.
13:29They did so well for us.
13:31I have more love and respect for them than I ever did.
13:40In 2021, Roseanne Cash, the daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash,
13:45appeared on Finding Your Roots, where she made a particularly interesting discovery.
13:50Would you like to meet your DNA cousin?
13:51Yes.
13:52Okay, please turn the page.
13:53Back in 1965, Cash's mother Vivian was targeted by the KKK in a racist campaign.
14:00The white supremacist group believed Vivian was Black, thus alleging her marriage to Johnny was illegal.
14:07She filed for divorce as kind of an ultimatum and wishful thinking and thinking that maybe if he sees I'm serious, he'll come back.
14:16The controversy only died down after the country singer issued a public statement insisting his wife was white.
14:23However, on Finding Your Roots, Cash discovered that her mother indeed had African-American heritage.
14:29Really?
14:30Vivian's maternal great-great-grandmother was a mixed race woman named Sarah Shields,
14:35who was born into slavery in Alabama.
14:38Shields later married a white man and recorded all her children as white in official documents.
14:44Number nine, Joe Manganiello.
14:47Actor Joe Manganiello owes his existence today to the remarkable tenacity of his maternal great-grandmother,
14:53Turvey's Rose Durakjan.
14:55Joe's grandmother, Sandra, was born in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
15:01Her mother, a woman named Rose Durakjan, was a survivor of the Armenian genocide.
15:08Durakjan was an Armenian woman who was married with eight children.
15:12In 1915, during the Armenian genocide, her husband and seven of her children were murdered before her eyes.
15:19Durakjan managed to escape and swam across the Euphrates River with her last surviving child strapped to her back.
15:27But tragically, the infant died during the journey.
15:31You ready to see what we found?
15:32Man.
15:34She was then thrown into an internment camp where she encountered a German soldier named Karl Wilhelm Bütinger,
15:41who impregnated her.
15:43On his paternal side, Manganiello also discovered that the man he believed to be his grandfather,
15:48Emilio Manganiello, was not biologically related to him.
15:52Close the door, and whoosh, I open the door and I'm here in Germany at this time looking at my ancestor that I never knew.
15:59Number eight, Tig Notaro.
16:01Even before Finding Your Roots, comedian Tig Notaro always knew she was the descendant of a politician.
16:07Comedian Tig Notaro grew up knowing that she had a celebrated ancestor.
16:12Her great-great-grandfather was John Fitzpatrick, who served as the mayor of New Orleans from 1892 to 1896.
16:20But it was on the show that Notaro first learned about her ancestor's upbringing.
16:24Register of boys received into the asylum.
16:27Name of the boy, John Fitzpatrick.
16:30Age when received, ten years.
16:32At the age of seven, Fitzpatrick lost his father and was placed in an orphan asylum alongside two of his brothers.
16:39Surprisingly, this wasn't due to their mother's demise, but rather the limited public welfare system,
16:45which apparently left her with no choice but to entrust some of her children to an orphanage.
16:50Can you imagine being in Catherine's position and being forced to do that?
16:54That's something I don't think I could get through.
16:57Fitzpatrick was later reunited with his mother and worked his way up from a newspaper boy to the mayor's office.
17:03The only thing that I know about him is just this man in a picture.
17:08It's like, hey, he was the mayor. I really, I don't know any of this.
17:12Number seven, Edward Norton.
17:15While Edward Norton is widely recognized for his roles in several popular Hollywood films,
17:20it turns out he may not be the most famous individual in his family tree.
17:24Pocahontas is indeed your twelfth great-grandmother.
17:27Oh my God.
17:29In the season nine premiere of Finding Your Roots, the actor learned that Pocahontas was his twelfth great-grandmother,
17:35confirming a long-held family lore.
17:38Makes you realize what a, what a, what a small, you know, piece of the whole human story you are.
17:45But perhaps the most uncomfortable detail uncovered during the episode was the revelation that Norton's third great-grandfather,
17:52John Winstead, was a slave owner in North Carolina.
17:56While he wouldn't be the first celebrity to make such a discovery, Norton reflected on its disturbing nature,
18:02describing it as a, quote, uncomfortable truth that, quote, needs to be acknowledged and, quote, contended with.
18:09You know, it is no, it's not a judgment on, on you and your own life, but it's a judgment on the, it's a judgment on the history of this country.
18:18Number six, Fred Armisen.
18:20For most of his life, Saturday Night Live alum Fred Armisen believed he was one quarter Japanese,
18:26attributing this to his grandfather, the late Masami Kuni, who hailed from Japan.
18:31He would later discover this was all false.
18:34So am I Korean?
18:37No.
18:38Kuni was actually South Korean, originally named Park Young-in,
18:42and only assumed a Japanese identity after the 1923 massacre of Koreans in Japan.
18:48It definitely, it changes the way I think about myself.
18:51But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
18:53Armisen also learned that while Kuni lived in Germany in the 1930s and 40s,
18:58he engaged in propaganda efforts for the Nazis by entertaining German troops.
19:04Additionally, during this period, Kuni apparently also worked as a spy for Japan,
19:09gathering intelligence on Southern European and Turkish affairs.
19:13He is one of the most clever agents they have.
19:16Number five, Lena Dunham.
19:18The 2024 film Treasure stars Lena Dunham as a young woman who visits Poland with her aging father
19:24and is forced to confront her family's Holocaust past.
19:27When Dunham appeared on Finding Your Roots,
19:30she discovered unexpected parallels between her own ancestry and that of her character in the movie.
19:35Can you imagine when you were 14, your parents would put you on a boat?
19:38No, I can't.
19:39It turns out that Dunham's great-great-grandmother, Regina,
19:42migrated to America as a teenager, leaving behind nearly a dozen siblings in Europe.
19:47Tragically, during World War II, one of Regina's nieces, Ilana,
19:52was separated from the rest of her family and sent to the Nazi-occupied city of Kamenets-Podilsky in Ukraine.
19:59Ilana is believed to be one of roughly 24,000 Jews who lost their lives there.
20:04To see a personal connection to it literalizes it in a way that is, um, that's very, very powerful.
20:13Number four, Joe Madison.
20:15Celebrities who appear on Finding Your Roots step into the unknown,
20:18unsure of what family secrets might be revealed.
20:21While many learn unsettling details about distant ancestors,
20:25veteran radio host Joe Madison was confronted with a startling truth about his own father.
20:30It was such a shocking discovery that I felt compelled to call Joe at home
20:35before our interview to let him know in private, away from any TV cameras.
20:41In the season five episode, Madison found out that Felix Madison,
20:45whom he had always believed to be his biological father, actually wasn't.
20:50I appreciated the, uh, your sincerity and concern.
20:56Sensing the sensitivity of the information, host Henry Louis Gates Jr.
21:00first called Madison privately to share it with him, away from all the cameras.
21:05And then the real question is, then, who was?
21:08Mm-hmm.
21:09Madison's appearance on the show also led him to the discovery
21:12that his biological grandfather was one of the subjects
21:15of the controversial Tuskegee Institute syphilis study.
21:19Number three, Pharrell Williams.
21:22For many African Americans, having the chance to read firsthand stories
21:26of their ancestors' lives, especially those who were enslaved, is rare.
21:31Acclaimed music producer Pharrell Williams got this opportunity
21:34when he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2021.
21:37I was born on the 18th of December, 1852.
21:41I was born on the plantation near Tar River.
21:44During the show, Williams was presented with an interview
21:47given by his great-great-great aunt, Jane Arrington,
21:50who participated in the Slave Narrative Project in the 1930s.
21:54In the interview, Arrington shared detailed accounts
21:57of her harrowing experience as an enslaved person.
22:00As he read the notes on the program, Williams was deeply moved
22:04by the hardships his ancestor was forced to endure.
22:07Those words also forced him to confront the cruel reality
22:13of what those ancestors actually experienced.
22:16He also uncovered the unsettling fact that his great-great-great grandfather,
22:21Fenner Williams, spent the first decade of his life enslaved.
22:25It's a lot, man.
22:26Oh!
22:27I have to say I am forever changed.
22:28Number two, Michael Douglas.
22:31Throughout his career, actor Michael Douglas has starred
22:34in multiple crime thrillers.
22:35Yet, few of those fictional narratives can match
22:38the gripping real-life tales of his own ancestors.
22:41Last permanent residence, Chowsy, Russia.
22:45Chowsy, Russia. You know who that is?
22:47That's your father's uncle.
22:49In a 2024 episode of the show, Douglas learned about his grandfather,
22:53Harry Danielewicz, and his great-uncle, Moshe,
22:57both of whom migrated to the U.S. from Chowsy in present-day Belarus.
23:02Before they left for America, both Harry and Moshe
23:05were caught up in a life of crime.
23:07Anyone who knows the whereabouts of Danielewicz
23:09is obliged to inform the court where he is.
23:12Harry had been arrested and sent to prison for robbery,
23:15while Moshe was implicated in an armed robbery case in 1906
23:19and declared a wanted man in Chowsy.
23:22However, it is unclear if he was ever apprehended
23:25before he left the country.
23:27This is blowing my mind a little bit.
23:29This is really blowing my mind.
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23:47Number 1. Maya Rudolph
23:49Like many other celebrities who have appeared on Finding Your Roots,
23:53Maya Rudolph aimed to uncover her identity.
23:551860 slave census for a man named John Warren Grigsby.
24:00Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
24:03I cannot believe I'm looking at this.
24:05The SNL alum was curious about her maternal African-American heritage
24:09and was given a glimpse into her ancestry.
24:12Through the show, Rudolph discovered her maternal
24:15great-great-great-grandfather, James Grigsby,
24:18who was born into slavery in Lincoln County, Kentucky.
24:21That breaks my heart.
24:26Well...
24:27A census document from 1860 showed Grigsby listed without a name,
24:32but solely by his sex and age.
24:345. This discovery was deeply unsettling to Rudolph,
24:38causing her to break down in tears.
24:41Wow. I just can't believe what I'm looking at.
24:44She also learned of another maternal ancestor
24:47whose owner's grandson denied him the financial compensation
24:50and freedom promised in his owner's will.
24:53Fortunately, he took the grandson to court and won.
24:56It just makes you feel like you're part of something so much bigger.
24:59What unexpected discoveries have you made in your own ancestry?
25:03Let us know in the comments.
25:05Dad. Dad, you'll never guess where I am.
25:08I'm in our ancestral home, McLeod Castle.
25:12And there was a long pause, and he said,
25:14you know, I think we're McFarlane.
25:17Do you agree with our picks?
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