Finding Your Roots

Our American Storytellers

Three iconic American storytellers have spent their lives chronicling the lives of others, while knowing almost nothing about their own family history. Ken Burns confronts the reality of his southern ancestors’ role in the Civil War, including Confederate soldiers held captive and a slave-owning Virginian. Anderson Cooper, scion of one of America’s most storied families.

Our American Storytellers Promo

33s

Ken Burns, Anderson Cooper and Anna Deavere Smith are three iconic American storytellers who have spent their lives chronicling the lives of others all the while knowing almost nothing about their own family history:

Previews + Extras

  • Anna Deavere Smith's Underground Railroad Connection: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Anna Deavere Smith's Underground Railroad Connection

    S2 E3 - 2m 35s

    Actress, playwright, and professor learns of her courageous ancestor, a conductor along the Underground Railroad. With the help of the Finding Your Roots research team, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was able to relay details about this inspirational hero, a freed slave risked his life to help others on the path to freedom.

  • Ken Burns' Revolutionary War Shocker: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Ken Burns' Revolutionary War Shocker

    S2 E3 - 2m 52s

    Documentary filmmaker and patriotic American Ken Burns discovers an incredibly surprising fact about his Revolutionary War-era ancestors -- they were loyalists, devoted to the Union Jack!

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