The sixth season of Finding Your Roots ended this week, and the next season is already set to begin on Tuesday, January 19, on PBS at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Season seven will consist of ten episodes and be broadcast throughout winter/spring 2021.
Among the guests are actors Glenn Close, John Lithgow, Jane Lynch, Audra MacDonald, Christopher Meloni and Tony Shalhoub; musicians Clint Black, Rosanne Cash and Pharrell Williams; directors Kasi Lemmons and John Waters; journalists Erin Burnett and Nina Totenberg; comedians Lewis Black and Jim Gaffigan; and late night personality Andy Cohen.
These episodes trace the guests’ family history throughout the United States and Canada and across Europe and Africa.
The first episode, entitled To the Manor Born, will feature Glenn Close and John Waters who “defy the traditions of their ancestors.”
In episode two, Against All Odds, Andy Cohen and Nina Totenberg learn about their ancestors who had to fight to survive.
Genetic genealogy
DNA test results will continue to be part of the stories unveiled.
Host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., said “Building on traditional paper trail research, genetic genealogy is a powerful tool for reconnecting branches on family trees eroded by silence and time. It also underscores one of the central themes of our series — that all of us, in one way or another, descend from immigrants whose travels across space are part of the larger human story of movement either through necessity, brutal force, escape, or the search for a better life.”
New lead genealogist
Assembling the family trees and family narratives alongside Dr. Gates are DNA expert CeCe Moore, founder of The DNA Detective and host of The Genetic Detective, and new lead genealogist Nick Sheedy, who carries on the work of founding series genealogist Johni Cerny, who passed away in early 2020.
