One of the best things about starting the new year is knowing there's a new season of Finding Your Roots to watch. Now in its eleventh season, the popular genealogical series on PBS features host Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who expertly guides two famous guests through their diverse family histories in each episode.
"Larger Than Life", the first episode of Season 11, premieres Tuesday, January 7, 2025, at 8 p.m. PST. Moving from a naval base in the Philippines to a small-town bakery in Pennsylvania to steamships on the Atlantic Ocean, actress/singers Amanda Seyfried (Mama Mia!, Les Misérables) and Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon, Mulan) meet ancestors who survived wars, murders, and heart-wrenching ordeals.
Photos courtesy of PBS
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The Casting Process for 'Finding Your Roots'
In a 2023 Q&A article with PBS Standards & Practices, Dr. Gates discussed how the production team selects the guests to appear in each season. Key factors include a range of actors, musicians, journalists, writers, etc., who reflect America's great diversity.
Q: Inclusiveness is one of PBS's six core principles, meaning “content should reflect the views of people from different backgrounds, such as geographic areas, ethnicities, genders, age groups, religious beliefs, political viewpoints, and income levels.” You manage to have an incredibly wide range of diverse guests on Finding Your Roots. How do you select who will be featured on your program?
Gates: "Casting for Finding Your Roots is a multifaceted process based on a number of factors. At its core is our desire to tell a rich range of stories that reflect the diversity of both the human experience as well as of the American people, as seen in the history of immigration to the United States. We work toward this goal by sending invitations out to a broad range of compelling individuals, without prior research about their family trees. Once a person has agreed to be in the series, only then does our research into their ancestry start.
Among the scores of possibilities for scheduling a person for a coming season, we engage in a great deal of lively internal discussions as a production team. Eventually, we arrive at a line-up of 20 to 25 guests each season. We also receive many suggestions from the public via social media—and sometimes even from individuals themselves, who reach out to us asking to have their family stories told. In every case, we evaluate potential guests individually while also thinking about the wonderful diversity of the American people—about how best to assemble a season of guests that, as a mosaic, emphasizes the two main themes of our series: first, that human beings are, in fact, far more alike than we are different, and second, that the drama of our family histories underscores how much we, as Americans, have in common.
"Alongside our focus on a sophisticated working concept of “genealogical diversity” is our goal of highlighting hidden or overlooked historical facts and narratives, especially stories of those fleeing religious or political persecution, the history of enslavement, and the suffering and resiliency of oppressed or marginalized groups: travails, certainly, but also triumphs. It is our belief that an ideal way for us to contribute to the telling of the endlessly fascinating history of the United States, and indeed the history of the modern world, is through the triumphs and traumas of the people whose family histories have contributed dramatically to the larger story of America. And their stories, we deeply believe, can best be revealed through genealogy. Genealogy is a way to teach our fellow citizens American history, from the roots, from the ground up, branch by branch."
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