Original Air Date:
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Guests:
This episode featured the following guests or clips including:
- Lisa Kudrow
- Brooke Shields
- Emmitt Smith
- Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Dr. Mehmet Oz
Show Summary:
After watching a series in the UK, Lisa Kudrow brought the idea to the US with Who Do You Think You Are? for NBC which follows celebrities as they discover their family histories. Clips of the program were featured revealing the generations past of Kudrow herself, Brooke Shields, and Emmitt Smith. The NBC program is similar to the PBS series Faces of America with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. which reveals information about celebrity DNA. Both shows feature such celebrities as Spike Lee, Mike Nichols, Susan Sarandon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Eva Longoria, Meryl Streep, and Dr. Oz.
Special Highlights:
This episode featured the following highlights:
- Lisa Kudrow traveled to Eastern Europe to find out more about her family history for the new NBC show.
- Brooke Shields found her family's past in Italy and France, uncovering that she is a descendant of Henry the Fourth.
- Emmitt Smith discovered his roots in Alabama and Virginia as a descendant of a slave owner.
- Henry Louis Gates Jr. helps celebrities find clues in their DNA on the PBS series.
What to Take Away from the Show:
Watching the various celebrities find keys to their past was just a glimpse at what is possible for every person to find out about where they come from to help them realize where they want to go. Dr. Gates made suggestions of contacting local genealogy societies or becoming a member of ancestry.com to begin the journey of uncovering past family members and important events in history that were a part of a family timeline. The importance of looking to the past is to truly know oneself as well as the struggles and triumphs of past ancestors that reveals what it took for this generation to be here.