Finding Your Roots - Season 1 - Eps 9: John Legend and Wanda Sykes
Most African Americans struggle to trace their ancestors beyond Emancipation; slavery erased names and family ties with brutal efficiency. But what about the descendants of the handful of free black people who evaded bondage during that terrible time? Musician John Legend and comedian Wanda Sykes discover the extraordinary stories of the free black ancestors they never knew about, while Professor Gates himself and his 98-year-old friend Margarett Cooper delve into the mysteries shrouding the free people of color in their family trees.
About Finding Your Roots

Title: Finding Your Roots
First Air Date: 2012-03-24
Last Air Date: 2025-02-25
Status: Returning Series
Rating: 6.2/10 (from 12 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 11
Total Episodes: 114
Network: PBS
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: Kunhardt McGee Productions, Ark Media, Inkwell Films
Synopsis
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
Cast

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Self - Host