Get ready for another batch of your very favorite Hollywood-ites turning to television to trace their ancestries to some strange and surprising new places when Finding Your Roots returns for Season 11 on PBS.
In the first trailer for the new season, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. interacts with a host of new notable figures, who all experience some sort of jaw-dropping revelation about their family histories.
The new season premieres at the start of the year with the first of 10 episodes, and the entire cast list and schedule have been revealed by the network as follows:
January 7 “Larger Than Life” – actors Lea Salonga and Amanda Seyfried January 14 “La Famiglia” – talk show host Joy Behar and actor Michael Imperioli January 21 “Stranger Than Fiction” – novelist Amy Tan and poet Rita DoveJanuary 28 “Dreamers One and All” – actor Sharon Stone and model Chrissy TeigenFebruary 4 “Family Recipes” – celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean ShermanFebruary 11 “Latin Roots” – musician Rubén Blades and journalist Natalie MoralesFebruary 18 “The Ties That Bind” – actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard February 25 “The Butterfly Effect” – actors Debra Messing and Melanie LynskeyApril 1 “Moving on Up” – historian Lonnie Bunch and actor Sheryl Lee Ralph April 8 “Finding My Roots” – actor Laurence Fishburne and host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Related‘Deal or No Deal Island’ Host Joe Manganiello Says ‘Finding Your Roots’ Changed His Life
The logline for the new season is: “As the pages turn in each guest’s book of life, emotional revelations give way to complex questions about identity. Through Gates’ discerning touch, his guests learn what every family history shares—love, courage, and sacrifice—and how our histories transcend borders, merging to form an American root system fortified by its diversity. Along the way, viewers are transported from coastal Africa to the Mississippi Delta; from shtetls in the former Russian Empire to the ancestral lands of the Lakota Nation; from villages in the Philippines to a pirate enclave in Puerto Rico—all in search of the stories that will bring our guests’ ancestors to life. What’s more, this new season also includes a special reveal: the solution to a mystery that has haunted Gates’ own family for generations.”
In a statement about the new season, Gates said, “Our ancestors’ genetic legacies cascade down the branches of our family trees informing who we are. As Finding Your Roots enters its eleventh season, the team and I cherish deeply the bond we have with our guests and viewers to explore the history we have in common through personal stories of those who have shaped our world, one generation to the next. It’s a special honor to have our home on PBS, and we can’t wait to share this season’s amazing slate of guests with our audience.”
That team includes Gates as well as DNA expert Cece More and genealogists Nick Sheedy, Kimberly N. Morgan, and Akosua Moore.
Finding Your Roots, Season 11 premiere, January 7, PBS
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