Top 10 Most Dramatic Moments on Finding Your Roots

On “Finding Your Roots,” award-winning actress Viola Davis learned the “messy truth” of her maternal lineage. While researching documents about Davis’ grandfather, Henry Logan, they found a discrepancy that revealed a long-held secret about his mother, Corine Ravenell. In the early 1940s, Gable Logan was listed as Henry’s father on his social security application. However, after Henry passed away in 1979, his obituary stated he was the son of a man named John Young. According to DNA analysis, Henry’s biological father was indeed Young, a nearby neighbor of Corine in South Carolina. Davis didn’t appear too shocked by the inference that her grandfather was born from an extramarital affair. However, she had some very poignant words of wisdom about ancestry.

In 2022, actress, writer, and director Pamela Adlon appeared on “Finding Your Roots” to solve a decades-long family mystery about her mom, Marina. It was always rumored that Marina wasn’t the biological daughter of Leonard Leece, the only father she’d ever known. Researching Adlon’s genealogy was a multiple-year process, but DNA results were finally able to determine that the rumor was true. Marina’s birth father was actually a man named Joseph Walthew. Adlon’s grandmother Phyllis was already married to Leonard when Marina was conceived. Researchers also discovered she had a half-sister named Gloria, Walthew’s other daughter. The truth may be scandalous, but in the end, it brought families together.

In season 6, host Henry Gates Jr. tells RuPaul Charles the compelling story of his maternal great-great-great-grandmother Julie, who was owned by a man named Jacques Fontenette. Interestingly, he freed her two children, Nanette and Andre, but kept Julie herself enslaved. RuPaul and Gates speculate on the reason for this act of compassion, theorizing that he could have been their father. Researchers discovered a record of manumission from 1818, stating that Andre bought his mother from Fontenette. After his tragic death, Nanette succeeded in freeing her, roughly 14 years after she and Andre were granted manumission. RuPaul can relate to the siblings’ determination and tearfully recalls how he felt caring for his own mother before she passed away.

The early life of James Todd Smith, aka LL Cool J, was scarred by his violent father. After the couple separated, LL and his mother, Ondrea Griffith, went to live with her parents, Eugene Griffith and Ellen Hightower. But “Finding Your Roots” made a life-changing discovery — the Griffiths were not LL’s biological grandparents. Ondrea was born Andra Jolly to parents Ethel Mae Jolly and Nathaniel Christy Lewis and later adopted by Eugene and Ellen. It’s a lot to process, especially since she never knew she was an adoptee. However, LL still has love and respect for the people who had a hand in raising him.

Like many participants in “Finding Your Roots,” Terry Crews goes on an emotional rollercoaster learning about the triumphs and tragedies of his ancestors. The multi-hyphenate entertainer learned that he likely inherited his ambitious nature from his maternal great-great-grandfather, Edward Elbert. The men also share a similar resilience as Crews’ 4x great-grandparents, George and Fannie Newsome. George was enslaved by a planter named Hezekiah Newsome while his wife and kids were at a nearby property. In 1858, Fannie was separated from five of their seven children.Four years after a partial reunion in1861, all nine family members were finally together again.. As a father of five, Crews felt a strong connection with his relatives and was deeply touched by their harrowing experience.

After his breakout role in the 1977 miniseries “Roots,” LeVar Burton was the host and executive producer of PBS’ beloved educational series “Reading Rainbow,” which ran from 1983 to 2006. He’s long been an advocate for literacy and always attributed it to his mother, Erma Gene Christian, a school teacher. But on “Finding Your Roots,” he discovered that his paternal relatives were also passionate about education. Estranged from his father since he was 11, Burton had no idea that his grandfather and great-grandfather both worked as school superintendents. And the latter was instrumental in founding and running a school in Osceola, Arkansas, for African American children. LeVar Burton was amazed that he had this powerful connection to his father’s family for all this time.

“Finding Your Roots” helped actor-comedian Iliza Shlesinger dig into her Eastern European paternal origins. She learned that her great-grandmother Esther Szonek managed to make her way from Poland to New York in 1921. However, she left behind five siblings. In September 1939, Mlawa, the small Polish town where Esther’s brother Lipa worked, was invaded by German soldiers, and its Jewish residents were confined to a “walled-in ghetto.” In November 1942, Lipa, along with many others, was taken to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died less than a year later. Shlesinger first felt proud that Esther immigrated to the United States on her own. But hearing about her close connection to the horrors of the Holocaust was a painful realization.

On “Finding Your Roots,” actor Mandy Patinkin traced the ancestry of his paternal grandfather, Max, and great uncle David Patinka, who came to America. David ultimately returned to Europe, where he, his wife, and two of their five children were killed during a robbery. In 1939, his son, Chaim, traveled to New York while Chaim’s brother, Lejzor, remained in the northeastern Polish town of Bransk, where the Germans confined them to a ghetto in 1941. On November 2, 1942, over two thousand Jewish residents, including Lejzor and his family, were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp. Just days later, they died in gas chambers, and their bodies were disposed of in a crematorium. Like Iliza Shlesinger, hearing what his relatives endured in the Holocaust was heart-wrenching and overwhelming for Patinkin.

Learning about the hardships and atrocities your ancestors faced is never easy. On “Finding Your Roots,” Pharrell Williams had the opportunity to read a firsthand account written by his great-great-great-aunt Jane Arrington, who was enslaved on a cotton plantation. As a part of the Slave Narratives Project of the 1930s, Arrington detailed the indignities her family suffered day-to-day. Reading her words and envisioning the painful reality of their lives had a visible effect on Williams. Despite the emotional experience, he was grateful to gain this intimate knowledge of his ancestors.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Issa Rae
The Actress-Producer Discovered Some Relationships Were a Bit Complicated

John Lewis
Civil Rights Activism Runs in the Family

Larry David
The Comedian Learns His Mother’s Real Name

Fred Armisen
The “SNL” Alum Can’t Believe His True Identity

QuestLove
The “Roots” Drummer’s Ancestors Came to the US on the Last Known Slave Ship

For some shocking discoveries, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. respectfully informs the guest off-camera prior to proceeding with the episode, which was the case with actor Joe Manganiello. He learned the mind-blowing truth that DNA showed he wasn’t biologically related to his paternal grandfather. Instead, his father’s father was a light-skinned African American man with the last name Cutler. Manganiello knew the harrowing story of his maternal great-grandmother, Terviz “Rose” Darakjian, an Armenian Genocide survivor who had a half-German daughter, Sondra, his grandmother. The show revealed her father to be a soldier named Karl Wilhelm Beutinger, whose son went on to join the Nazi’s SS. Learning this wealth of information had such a profound impact on Manganiello that he continued tracing his genealogy after the show.

Which of these moments did you find the most dramatic? Let us know in the comments below.