Finding Your Roots

Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Title card from the second season
Genre	Family history Genealogy Documentary Series
Written by	Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Directed by	John Maggio Jesse Sweet Caitlin McNally Jack Youngelson Sabin Streeter Julia Marchesi
Presented by	Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Composer(s)	Michael Bacon
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	30
Production
Executive producer(s)	Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Producer(s)	Rachel Dretzin Leslie Asako Gladsjo Dyllan McGee Peter Kunhardt Stephen Segaller
Running time	51–53 minutes
Production company(s)	Kunhardt McGee Productions Inkwell Films Ark Media
Release
Original network	PBS
Original release	March 25, 2012 (2012-03-25) – present
Chronology
Preceded by	Faces of America
Website

Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a PBS television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The first season aired on PBS from March 25 to May 20 of 2012. It was broadcast in the 8–9 p.m time slot (EDT). The series returned for a second season on September 23, 2014 and finished on November 25, 2014. Season three began airing on January 5, 2016.

The series uses traditional genealogical research and genetics to discover the family history of well-known Americans. Genetic techniques include Y-chromosome DNA, , and autosomal DNA analyses to infer both ancient and recent genetic relationships. The series has examined the family histories of celebrity guests with African American, Asian American, Chinese American, Greek American, Indian American, Irish American, Italian American, Jewish American, and Latin American heritage.

Each celebrity guest is given a book of life, which contains all of the information discovered about the guest's genealogy by researchers. Included in or with the book are comprehensive genetic results, a family tree that is as complete as paper research allows, copies of historical records used to assemble each tree, and photos of newly found family members. In some episodes, particularly episodes in which original DNA research must be used to establish a past ancestor's parental link, guests are reunited with long-lost relatives. However, in most episodes, each guest is predominately shown seated opposite Gates as he guides them through their book of life. To show correlations between the guests family stories, each episode cuts back and forth between two or three guest stories. To draw further correlations Gates uses examples from his own genealogy quite frequently. Examples of this would be a grandmother of his having multiple children with a white man whose name she never revealed, as well as Gates' membership into the Sons of the American Revolution.