Starting Sunday evening, October 12, CNN will host Roots: Our Journeys Home, a week-long series of programs about family history, culminating in a two-hour special on Monday, October 20. The series features 13 of the network’s prominent hosts and anchors as they set out on a journey to discover their roots.
Canadian roots
Note that on Thanksgiving Monday, the story is about Michaela Pereira who was adopted in Canada. Based on the description, it appears however that much of her ancestral journey will likely be in Jamaica.
Then on Tuesday, Jake Tapper’s Loyalist ancestors are referred to as traitors. Sigh. To think researching a Loyalist ancestor is a coveted activity by Canadian genealogists. Jake travels to Canada to learn about his treacherous ancestors. I hope he becomes proud of his ancestors who remained loyal, unlike filmmaker Ken Burns who was ashamed of his Loyalist ancestry on this week’s Finding Your Roots.
Extras available online
Beginning today, Friday, October 10, a sneak peek at Roots is available on CNN.com. As the journeys unfold on air, viewers online will be invited to watch and share the segments as well as explore more of each anchor’s story through video extras, exclusive photos and first-person accounts of their individual journeys. You will also be able to compare your habits and hobbies to CNN’s anchors with a new “Which anchor are you?” quiz. Throughout, the Roots experience will extend across on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr using the hashtag #CNNRoots.
Broadcast schedule
The following broadcast schedule is listed in Eastern time.
Sunday, October 12, 9:00 p.m.
Anthony Bourdain – This investigation into the puzzling history of the Bourdain’s great, great, great, grandfather, Paraguayan émigré Jean Bourdain, serves as a springboard to his first tour of this South American country. In Paraguay, Bourdain explores both jungle and desert land, a rich culture, and savory local dishes that include Bife Koygua, Bori Bori, and Sopa Paraguaya.
Monday, October 13, 6:00 a.m. on New Day
Michaela Pereira – Michaela Pereira’s adoption journey began when she was very young—just three-months-old in Canada. Although she “hit the jackpot” with her adoptive family, she also knows that much of what you see in front of you—the color of her skin, the curl of her hair—comes from her biological parents. After a brief search years ago led to closed doors, Michaela embarks on her roots journey again—this time not in pursuit of her birth parents, but for the place that her ancestors came from—in St. James Parish, Jamaica.
Monday, October 13, 8:00 p.m. on AC360
Anderson Cooper – Many people know Anderson Cooper as having come from one of America’s most famous families – the Vanderbilts. But growing up, Anderson was always drawn to the southern roots of his father, Wyatt Cooper. Anderson travels to Mississippi where his father grew up and discovers ties between the poor farming family and the rich Vanderbilts that existed before his parents ever met.
Tuesday, October 14, 6:00 a.m. on New Day
Chris Cuomo – The son and brother of two governors of New York, Chris Cuomo thought he knew all there was to know about his roots, but he discovers a mysterious figure, Germana Castaldo, at the heart of it. Chris travels to the bedrock of the Cuomo family in Italy to retrace her steps.
Tuesday, October 14, 4:00 p.m. on The Lead
Jake Tapper – Jake Tapper grew up in Philly, blocks from Independence Hall, steeped in Americana. He was surprised to learn his family members were Colonists. He was even more surprised to learn that, during the Revolutionary War, they were traitors who sided with British and fled to Canada. Jake travels to Canada to unravel the mystery of why his family remained loyal to the Crown, and how that changes his own story.
Tuesday, October 14, 7:00 p.m. on Erin Burnett OutFront
Erin Burnett – After 50 years of living on a farm in Maryland, Erin Burnett’s parents are packing up their memories and moving on. The move prompts Erin to learn more about her roots beyond the home she grew up in and loves so much. Her journey takes her to a remote Scottish island where she uncovers her ancestors’ struggle to survive the potato famine, and meets relatives who still call Scotland home.
Tuesday, October 14, 10:00 p.m. on CNN Tonight
Don Lemon – Because of poor record keeping, it’s nearly impossible for descendants of slaves in America to trace their ancestry past 1870. So CNN’s Don Lemon sets off to find his roots and fill the gaps in his family tree. It’s a journey that takes him from a Louisiana plantation to the hub of the transatlantic slave trade in West Africa.
Wednesday, October 15, 6:00 a.m. on New Day
Christine Romans – As a journalist, Christine Romans interviews newsmakers every day. But in her family, the real newsmaker is just an ordinary girl who had the courage to leave a small town in Denmark, and everything she knew, behind to start all over again in America. Christine goes there, to where it all started.
Wednesday, October 15, 5:00 p.m. on Sit Room
Wolf Blitzer – Wolf Blitzer pays a visit to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum. While there, this son of Holocaust survivors discovers his paternal grandparents actually perished in one of the most brutal extermination camps of WWII, Auschwitz. Wolf returns to his roots in Poland: to visit the camp where more than a million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. He travels to his father’s hometown in the neighboring village, where not one Jew lives today. Wolf also looks for any trace of his maternal grandparents – including his namesake Wolf Zylberfuden – a task made more difficult by a Poland completely rebuilt after the war. Wolf then heads to his own hometown of Buffalo, New York, where his parents managed to start a successful new life in America.
Wednesday, October 15, 8:00 p.m. on AC360
Sanjay Gupta – CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, takes his family half-way around the world to uncover his roots. Their trip, from his mother’s tiny village in Pakistan to his father’s hometown just outside Delhi, is full of surprises. And you won’t believe how mom and dad actually met, right here in America. (re-airs Saturday October 18 at 4:30 p.m. on Sanjay Gupta MD)
Thursday, October 16, 6:00 a.m. on New Day
Kate Bolduan – Kate Bolduan just gave birth to her first child, a daughter, so finding out about her family tree comes at a perfect time. Bolduan grew up in the Midwest, and was surprised to learn that she comes from a long line of glass blowers from a tiny village in Belgium. Pregnant during her journey, Bolduan set off to find out more about the family business, learning her great-great-grandmother traveled to America while she was pregnant, too. And you’ll never believe what historic event happened just weeks before she set sail.
Friday, October 17, 6:00 a.m. on New Day
John Berman – Could John Berman be royalty? Is he related to the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, noted as the Prince of Philosophers? John Berman travels to Amsterdam, the country where his ancestors, the Spinozas, lived for 140 years in search of his “Inner Spinoza”… and the truth.
Friday, October 17, 8:00 p.m. on AC360
Fareed Zakaria – Fareed Zakaria takes viewers on a historical journey as he explores his family’s roots and discovers how his personal story intersects with critical moments in history. Fareed’s father, an orphan and self-made man who eventually became a Minister in India’s government, often claimed that he had Central Asian “warrior” ancestry. Given the lack of records in India, Fareed takes a DNA test to see whether his father’s jocular claims can be validated. True to form, Fareed puts what he learns along the way into greater historical context. (This will be re-aired Sunday, October 19 at 10:00 a.m. on Fareed Zakaria GPS.)
Monday, October 20, 9:00 p.m.
Roots: Our Journeys Home – CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Michaela Pereira will host a two-hour special featuring the network’s hosts and anchors’ stories. The special will also include interviews with Anderson Cooper, Michaela Pereira, Erin Burnett and Dr. Sanjay Gupta about what the experience has meant to them personally.
Once again, French Canada remains invisible as a source for the roots of North America. I watched the Faces of America PBS series when it first appeared a few years ago. The only guest who had specific French-Canadian ancestors was novelist Louise Erdrich, one of whose ancestors is François Fafard dit Delorme, who was with the first convoy to found Fort Pontchartrain (Detroit) and the interpreter in the Ottawa language for the king. He lived at Detroit for many years. He’s my distant cousin.
Louise is very aware of her Native American ancestry, especially those who lived under the British and the Americans, but had never heard that she also has this interpreter for the French and Indians in her line. It kind of shook up her belief that all Europeans were horrible to Native Americans. She kept saying, “No way!” when the host, Gates, produced the 1701 hiring contract that took Fafard to Fort Pontchartrain and told her she was one of his descendants. I have a copy of this contract and the others that hired the men who traveled to establish a fort at what became Detroit.
Genealogy programs delight in finding ancestry in Old France, especially when a link to royalty can be found, but the years of 1608 to 1763 of the society of New France remains invisible as do its descendants who voyaged to and populated the United States before it was the United States. Not even a program set in Detroit did anything with this much-neglected heritage. Sigh…
Visit the website of the French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan to read about our very interesting story:
http://habitantheritage.org
Thanks for the heads up! I will be watching. Anderson Cooper was recently on another genealogy tv show: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/
I was also surprised to read that Anderson Cooper will receive a second dose of genealogy — and on his father’s side again. Lucky him.
Thank you for highlighting this show, Gail. I wonder, as someone who does not have cable, if the episodes will be available online at CNN.com. I’ll be watching for them.
Let’s hope so. My PVR can only handle so many programs — and I may forget to PVR parts of the CNN series. That said, if the episodes are online, I suspect they will only be available in the US.
Will the episodes of Roots Journey of our Ancestors be on again or can the be seen On Demand on Comcast in the USA? The series seem very interesting and I am so eager to watch them.