You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. It doesn't exist. Students pose with Henry Louis Gates Jr. following Tuesday, Nov. 19's forum. It was just misdiagnosed. It's a horrible way to start, in a way. In general, however, a family history book is a bound or digital book with sections devoted to your ancestors. Watching a list of 26 titles created 26 Jan 2019 Barack Obama understood that and, I think, certainly helped our nation to heal. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FINDING YOUR ROOTS"). I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. A family history book can also be expensive, as weve covered, so its worth doing your research to find the best genealogist for your project. Genealogy is one of those things that you can keep doing forever, so itll be up to you, your genealogist, and your budget to determine a good stopping point for your project. Accuracy and availability may vary. DEGGANS: Well, Professor Gates has a reputation as one of the country's leading historians, so the question of his ethical standards is kind of important. Brian Cox's family history in Scotland is investigated by host Henry Louis Gates Jr. on a Season 9 episode of "Finding Your Roots. Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. GATES: But then they did another special test. The tale, as I later discovered, is a tangled one. And you got this from the 1870 census - (reading) that Jane Gates, age 51, female, mulatto, laundress and nurse, owns real estate valued at $1,400; born in Maryland; cannot read or write. GATES: I'll never - I love you, Mama. Why are they so expensive? And I gave it to her for birthday. You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? You might have breast cancer. And you - the last scene is the funeral. The supposedly fearless leader battled the English, the Scots, the French and even the Romans, and struck fear into the heart of his enemies. There are no review sites like Yelp for genealogists, so it can be tough to know where to start. He was 97, as you said. They spoke in front of an audience last May when Gates received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. I love you. GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy. 4 min read. "It was so popular that PBS said, 'nah, you gotta cut white people in on this,'" Gates Jr. laughed. GROSS: Thank you for all of all of the things you've written for your TV shows, for your movies. GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. And then it was a property requirement. And I learned a lot about the medium. In his 2016 book, Finding Your Roots, Season 2: The Official Companion to the PBS Series, and in an article at The Huffington Post, Henry wrote that his 23andme DNA test results state his genetic ancestry to be: *50.1% European. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. And then they'll make their decision on when they're going to schedule the third season and if they're going to do a fourth season. A plaque was unveiled in Cambridge in honour of Crummell and two other black pioneers: Gloria Carpenter . The research for the stories on Finding Your Roots is completed by a team of people, including several professional genealogists who specialize in different subject areas, such as genetic genealogy. The video will be available shortly. That's not the way it was. Famed Harvard University Professor Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr. got a major surprise when he started researching his own ancestry - in his . And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This came as no surprise to me because the first time I saw the guy giving an interview on television he said the word "Black" five times before . Henry Louis Gate was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, W.Va. And another person to interpret my genetic data because it's 6 billion base pairs, right? CORNISH: So as we said, this show features celebrities learning about their family history, and the controversy actually emerged from the Sony email hack, right? In Georgia and Alabama the number is about 9 percent. GATES: Right after the Beer Summit, it all went away. FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Season Nine is a production of McGee Media, Inkwell Media, Kunhardt Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Corporate support for FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH . S9 E2 - 52m 11s. Henry Louis Gates. CLIP. So you found out that your ancestors were, like, 18 miles away from where you lived. GROSS: Yeah. When my daughters were born, I had them tested for sickle cell because - black people are not the only people in the world that have sickle cell. Jan 18, 2012. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. And I loved the news. All Rights Reserved. I said, well, I've never met Donald Trump. It was a horrible, horrible thing. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012, on PBS.In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled with information researched by professional genealogists that allows them to view their ancestral histories, learn about familial connections and discover . And then black people would tell each other - they would say, you know, be sure to watch "The Late Late Show" tonight because "Imitation Of Life," which is my favorite film - 1934, with Claudette Colbert. After that, everything stopped. Henry Louis Gates Jr. doesn't seem too worried about "critical race theory" or "white fragility" or "woke warriors" or any of those ridiculous buzzwords that get tossed around when . It is also the name of Irish pubs all over the world. Remember all the talk about post-racialism that GATES: We thought when Obama - we had turned a corner, and we could, you know, beat our - the plowshares into pruning hooks - right? But the ancestry is being investigated against the will of the people being outed. Research reports are great! Then he'd come back. They lived together. Coming up, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. But this week, Gates's wish came true. Jakes and Chris Tucker. Of course not. Abby Wolf (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2012), a collection of three decades of his work, was published in 2012. ", Gates Jr. said he'd originally focused on Black guests as African and African American studies were his "brand as it were.". Black people came here - not willingly, of course. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses, as described in his memoir Colored People (1994). Thanks to an encounter with a family scrapbook at a young age, ancestry fascinates Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Emmy-winning filmmaker, author and Harvard University professor raised in the tiny town of Piedmont, West Virginia. GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. GROSS: It has been a great honor to speak with you. If you dislike a persons writing style, or if you have difficulty understanding what theyre saying, its probably not a good idea to hire them to write a 100-page book for you. And most DNA companies in the United States will tell you that they have never tested an African-American who is 100 percent from sub-Saharan Africa. - Part 01 HD Watch. **This blog post was updated on 6 April 2022**So, youve been watching the amazing stories about celebrities family histories on the TV show Finding Your Roots on PBS, and after a few episodes, youve started to wonder, Can Henry Louis Gates research my family tree?. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies. Legend has it that it was Niall of the Nine Hostages who, on a raid in Wales, captured a young slave and brought him to Ireland. And before I started school - I started school when I was, well, 5, turning 6 - I would get dressed up, and I would go to church with my mom. Family history books are most similar to the Books of Life featured on the show, so Ill be talking about them here. *48.6% Sub-Saharan African. PBS has delayed scheduling the show's third season. CORNISH: Meanwhile, the program "Finding Your Roots," what's been the fallout for the show? And when they analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, it went to England. If youre a celebrity or public figure, then probably yes! Some projects take literally years to complete. GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. Gates Jr. added, "Oprah just broke down and cried in the middle of the shoot. Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia, to Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c.1913-2010) and his wife Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (1916-1987). But maybe youre thinking, But Im not here for a research report. People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. Where does your nickname Skip come from? Help me understand why this matters. And my grandfather was so white, we called him Casper behind his back. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. To be clear, I don't work for Finding Your Roots; I'm just a professional genealogist who knows people who have worked on the show and I was present for the filming of an episode. All rights reserved. When it came to the bedroom, it seems that Niall of the Nine Hostages was even more fearless and energetic than he was on the battlefield. The researchers also found that as many as one in 12 men in Ireland have the same DNA as the Irish king -- and in Ireland's northwest, that figure rises to one in five. If my areas of expertise do not align with your needs, check out my guide for finding a professional genealogist. And when my grandparents came as immigrants, my family was able to assimilate pretty easily because we're white. The latest episode of Finding Your Roots airs on Tuesday January 31, and features 76-year-old Scottish actor Brian Cox. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. Family history books can vary widely from one genealogist to the next, but they may resemble chapter- or coffee-table books with sections devoted to your ancestors. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was born Sept. 16, 1950, in Keyser, W.Va. His father worked at the local paper mill during the day and as a janitor at a telephone company at night. It's incredible that the mystery to my family tree - I'm looking toward Africa, and it was 18 miles away in Moorefield, W.Va., County Courthouse. All rights reserved. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. If you have an ancestor that you are particularly interested in, its a good idea to let your genealogist know. Listen to National Gallery of Art panel discussions featuring Image of the Black series editors David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as well as HUP editor Sharmila Sen: Part I | Part II | Part III; In conjunction with Harvard's Du Bois Institute, The Root hosted an "Image of the Week" series featuring art from the Image of the Black archive. Elizabeth Shotbolt , Phillip Fordham, Bridget Shelley , Anthony Hungerford. But then President Obama called you both together. . Writing samples might range from blog posts to published research in peer-reviewed journals. More research time equals more discoveries, enabling the researchers to uncover those mind-blowing records fit for television. GROSS: OK. On your mother's side, you found out that you had three men in the family who were freed slaves - freed before 1776. Finding Your Roots airs weekly on Tuesdays on PBS. So that was a steal. Old photographs are usually kept in families and passed down through the generations, so family albums and attics are the most logical place to look for them. There he found that he shared 10 of the 11 DNA matches with offspring of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fourth century warlord who created one of the dominant strains of Irish genealogy because he had so many offspring. So everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the climax when Delilah - is her name - the character. And that night - and then daddy showed my brother and me, Dr. Paul Gates now, chief of dentistry at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital GATES: Well, it's the spirit of my mother. CORNISH: As it turns out, Affleck asked the program not to include the fact that one of his ancestors owned slaves, and the information did not air. When Bernie Sanders turned the page in his Book of Life, he was so shocked he put his hand to his temple and said, Youre kidding Oh my god! and burst out laughing. Genealogy for Henry Louis Gates, Sr. (1913 - 2010) family tree on Geni, with over 240 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. (Preston Crawley) "I love being in Utah because I love genealogy," Henry Louis Gates Jr. said as he addressed BYU . And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. PBS. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. On the PBS series, Gates visits Trinity College to find his roots, and says to the genealogist, "Do I look like an Irishman to you? Published February 4, 2023 at 5:25 PM EST. She was smart and she went to college, which was unusual for a woman in that era. And I hope they are. But I think that you should have to get permission before someone is creeping around in your DNA. Gates co-produces and hosts the genealogy show, "Finding Your Roots." Watch the full episode at PBS.org/FindingYourRoots. And it's for my father. GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. And I realized only recently that though I was raised to be a doctor, deep down, I really wanted to be a writer. They want them to hire an additional fact-checker and an independent genealogist to check for accuracy. We're all admixed. "My idea was that I would reveal where in Africa, on a guest mother's mother's line, they had hailed from. Henry Louis Gates Jr. 0:30. Ahead of the latest episode on PBS, which features Brian Cox and Viola Davis, Gates Jr. sat down with Newsweek to discuss the origins of the show, and why it's superior to other ancestry shows on TV. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. You know, I try to - doing "Finding Your Roots" is a way to paying homage to my mother and father every year. I've been looking all over Africa and I couldn't find anybody, so I ended up here. GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). Last year, Gates uncovered a manuscript of a novel purportedly written in the 1850s by an African American woman who had been a slave. executive producer (33 episodes, 2012-2023) Deborah Clancy Porfido . Henry serves as a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. GATES: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. Gates Jr., a self-confessed fan of Succession, was thrilled when Cox agreed to do the show, and shared a behind-the-scenes video of the segment on Twitter on Monday. He married Pauline Augusta Coleman. GATES: I said, thank God. Race is a social construction. Department of English Barker Center 12 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Hours: M-F 9:00 am-5:00 pm Phone: 617-495-2533 Fax: 617-496-8737 Gates attended Yale University and the University of Cambridge. To put it simply, Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a man who knows his history, and if knowledge is power, he is a powerful man indeed. Two men at the center of the controversy are linked by their Irish heritage. Guests from all ethnic backgrounds are welcomed as Gates Jr. investigates the lineage of his celebrity guests. And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. 1. And at the time, the airwaves were so segregated, they only put black films on "The Late Late Show." This is FRESH AIR. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Variety has an exclusive first look at Gates' appearance; scroll down for [] - like the Bible says? They should also be a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. That the emotional apex would not be around them discovering where in Africa their mother's mother's line came from. In my experience, cousins are usually more receptive to requests for pictures from known family members (as opposed to friendly but unfamiliar genealogists). And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. And they fought in the Revolutionary War. And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. This is called an admixture test. He introduced the notion of signifyin' to represent African and African American literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. GROSS: I saw his picture in the obituary. "Finding Your Roots" is essentially a pop genealogy show, right? Or they stayed home, and they drew. Without the research, citations, and analysis in the report, conclusions are not possible. Members get extended access to PBS video on demand and more. So, your real-life family history book might resemble a novel or coffee-table book, rather than a scrapbook like those on the program. And we have a wall of degrees at home. We wanted to see what more we could tell Ben Affleck about the roots of his family's interest in social justice. What is race? DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. My momma called me Skippy from the time I was born. The whole world calls me Skip. If youd like to get an idea about what its like working with a particular genealogist, read their testimonials or reviews. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. The Finding Your Roots host said discoveries about families like Cox's is a welcome lesson. Long before he became the comforting presence on TV, Gates Jr. had a successful tenured career as an academic across several prestigious universities. Everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the books of featured... Black people came here - not willingly, of course about what its working! Your African ancestors so that 's fine ( Laughter ) analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, so Ill be talking them! Last May when gates received WHYY 's annual Lifelong Learning Award imprinted this woman 's in! Of Crummell and two other black pioneers: Gloria Carpenter n't find anybody, Ill. For a woman in that era be around them discovering where in Africa their mother line... 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