Where Did We Come From?

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. journeys with Erin Burnett, Amy Carlson and André Leon Talley, three guests from diverse backgrounds, as they meet the ancestors who laid the groundwork for their success.

“It’s pretty amazing. From another country, another place, and yet tied directly to me." Erin Burnett reads the baptism record of her great-grandmother, who was born shortly after the great potato famine in Ireland.

"That’s how life happens sometimes, right? Totally by accident.” Amy Carlson reacts to learning about the adorable way her great-great-grandparents met while immigrating from Sweden.

In 1880, divorce in New York City was so exceedingly rare (only 0.2%!) that the divorce of Erin Burnett’s great-great-grandfather from his first wife made headlines in several newspapers.

André Leon Talley’s fashion muse was none other than his grandmother. He said that she was a domestic worker for 50 years, but she “rose to her regality every Sunday when she put on that hat.”

Fashion icon and Francophile André Leon Talley was pleased to discover that his grandfather was stationed in France when he served in World War I.

When Amy Carlson's sixth great-grandfather died in battle after 26 years in the Swedish military, one of his son's replaced him in service. Here, Amy admires the stoicism it must have taken for her sixth-great-grandmother to accept her son's decision.

André Leon Talley and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discussed how his great-great-grandfather’s bequeathment from a slave owner to his child was similar to how a car or piano would get passed down in a will.