.jpg) Author Alex Haley's, "Roots", a Pulitzer prize winning novel, pioneered ABC's first week long mini-TV series in 1977. Millions of TV viewers watched a fact and fictional drama about Alex Haley's real life ancestor, Kunte Kinte, a proud West African from Gambia. Kinte was captured by slave traders, shipped to America and sold to a Maryland slave owner. Always curious about the truth of his famous ancestor, Haley began a life changing quest that took years of research before "Roots" was ever published. When he was finished, Haley had uncovered a mystery and filled a gap in his life that many Afro-Americans were also seeking to close. This was to know where they had come from and who they were in separation from the American identities forced upon them during 400 years of European ownership.
Largely an immigrant population, many Americans are not in possession of their ancestral identities either. It is said the "Roots" TV series inspired many people to research their family genealogy. How they may have been changed by this questing experience is known only to them and their families. Currently, 34 years later, NBC is giving TV viewers an opportunity to learn how celebrities feel about who they are in once they have quested after their roots. Aptly, titled, "Who Do You Think You Are?", TV watchers follow the personal quests of a musician, an NFL football player, actors, actresses and a director-producer as they track down their family lineage. Their faces may be familiar to the public when they are "at work," but on the show, each are willing to reveal themselves often in very personal ways when they are not in character "at work."
Sarah Jessica Parker felt she was "All American" when she discovered many generations of her mother's ancestry living in Massachusetts were possible descendants of the Massachusetts Bay colonists. Matthew Broderick unwittingly solved a mystery dating back a 150 years. He was able to identify the unknown grave of his great great grandfather, a Civil War private buried in a Georgia cemetery. Spike Lee and Lisa Kudrow each found long lost distant cousins. Lisa found her Russian relative living in Poland. Lee found his in Georgia, a descendant of the slave master who had fathered his great great grandmother. Brooke Shields forgave her grandmother for mistreating her mother when she learned her grandmother had taken on family responsibilities for her siblings at age 15. Brooke's mother left home at 18 and grandmother held it against her for not accepting family responsibility for Brooke's aunts and uncles. Susan Sarandan discovered she was artistic like the grandmother she had never known.
It is likely "Who Do You Think You Are?" will inspire more people to track down the mysteries of their roots. In doing so, people can begin to understand who they are with the help of their family lineage. In a better day, this understanding could help bring about a continuing decrease in prejudice, reconnect lost family members, and restore true self-worth to scarred identities. Uncovering ancestral stories can shed a new perspective on one's life.
Two most common ancestry websites: www.ancestry.com and www.Genealogy.com.
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