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The Worst Episodes of Finding Your Roots

Every episode of Finding Your Roots ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Finding Your Roots!

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Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct

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  1. #1 Worst Episode
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    Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 1 - Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.
    0.0/10(66 votes)

    #1 - Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.

    S1:E1

    Their European immigrant ancestors blazed unconventional trails in America, from capturing British ships for the American Revolution to crossing racial barriers in slave-era Louisiana. Generations later, as children growing up in New Orleans, Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis found a deep and abiding friendship through their common love of jazz and of the city itself. In this hour, we trace the turbulent and contradictory history of the city of New Orleans through the family stories of these two fascinating men.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 2 - John Lewis and Cory Booker
    0.0/10(70 votes)

    #2 - John Lewis and Cory Booker

    S1:E2

    In this episode, we feature two African American politicians from different generations and opposite backgrounds. John Lewis grew up in a sharecropping family in rural Georgia, while Cory Booker was raised in an affluent, all-white New Jersey suburb. Although both men have devoted their lives to the betterment of African-American people, neither of them knows much about their own ancestors. In this episode, we introduce Booker to his white great-grandfather, a man he never knew, and move Lewis to tears over the extraordinary ambitions and accomplishments of his slave ancestors..

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 3 - Barbara Walters and Geoffrey Canada
    0.0/10(53 votes)

    #3 - Barbara Walters and Geoffrey Canada

    S1:E3

    What's in a name? Well, a lot, at least when it comes to piecing together your family history. For former slaves, choosing a last name was one of their first acts of freedom. For Jewish immigrants, it was a way to fit in their new country. Whatever the reason for a name change, it can make the process of learning about one's ancestors difficult, if not impossible. In this episode, we unearth missing links in the family histories of media legend Barbara Walters and educational superstar Geoffrey Canada. Walters did not know her father's real last name. Canada did not know the name of his grandfather. Both of them had been unable to access their history... until now.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 4 - Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon
    0.0/10(63 votes)

    #4 - Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon

    S1:E4

    What do Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have in common? They are both famous actors and both descend from prominent American families that have been in this country since its inception. But they share something else, too: both had ancestors who were early opponents of slavery. Bacon's Quaker ancestors repudiated slavery long before the rest of the country, in 1780. And Sedgwick's ancestor Theodore Sedgwick argued the freedom case of Elizabeth Freeman, also known as "Mumbet," in 1781 -- which helped bring an end to slavery in Massachusetts. We reveal this fact - and many others - to Sedgwick and Bacon in this episode, and learn quite a bit about slavery in the North in the process.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 5 - Rick Warren, Angela Buchdahl and Yasir Qadhi
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #5 - Rick Warren, Angela Buchdahl and Yasir Qadhi

    S1:E5

    Pastor Rick Warren, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Sheik Yasir Qadhi are of three different faiths, all with complex family histories that profoundly shaped their religious beliefs. Our research of their roots unearthed a story about the spiritual foundations of this country, an unrelenting struggle to achieve our ideal of religious freedom and tolerance, but also the difficulties sometimes of holding onto one's faith and still feeling like an "authentic" American.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 6 - Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal
    0.0/10(55 votes)

    #6 - Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal

    S1:E6

    Many American descend from a dense soups of European ethnicities; we could call them mutts, with ancestral roots across every country in Europe. Actors Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal are textbook examples of Americans with a rich tapestry of European immigrant stories making up their family trees. We delve in to their deep American roots in early colonial communities, and we meet their Eastern European Jewish ancestors, who share almost identical migration stories From the Mayflower to Ellis Island, we journey through centuries of immigration that shaped and built our melting pot nation.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 BEST Episodes of Finding Your Roots

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  7. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 7 - Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Ruth Simmons
    0.0/10(50 votes)

    #7 - Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Ruth Simmons

    S1:E7

    Samuel L. Jackson, Condoleezza Rice and Brown University President Ruth Simmons have each climbed to the pinnacle of their profession, yet each started life as a second class citizen in the Jim Crow south. In this episode we will use DNA to investigate family mysteries: where do they come from in Africa, and who are the white men in their family trees?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 8 - Martha Stewart, Margaret Cho and Sanjay Gupta
    0.0/10(44 votes)

    #8 - Martha Stewart, Margaret Cho and Sanjay Gupta

    S1:E8

    The three guests in this episode are all children of first- or second-generation immigrants and share the peculiar burdens of that heritage. In an episode that crisscrosses the planet, from India to Korea to Poland, catch a glimpse of three distinct yet oddly overlapping experiences of families leaving their homes and becoming American.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 9 - John Legend and Wanda Sykes
    0.0/10(52 votes)

    #9 - John Legend and Wanda Sykes

    S1:E9

    Most African Americans struggle to trace their ancestors beyond Emancipation; slavery erased names and family ties with brutal efficiency. But what about the descendants of the handful of free black people who evaded bondage during that terrible time? Musician John Legend and comedian Wanda Sykes discover the extraordinary stories of the free black ancestors they never knew about, while Professor Gates himself and his 98-year-old friend Margarett Cooper delve into the mysteries shrouding the free people of color in their family trees.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Finding Your Roots Season 1 Episode 10 - Adrian Grenier, Michelle Rodriguez and Linda Chavez
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #10 - Adrian Grenier, Michelle Rodriguez and Linda Chavez

    S1:E10

    Michelle Rodriguez, Adrian Grenier and Linda Chavez all share Spanish colonial roots, yet each views their own identity very differently. In this episode we ask what it means to be Hispanic-and find that the answer lies in the tangled histories of European, Native American and African peoples. Crisscrossing Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, and the Southwest, Professor Gates reveals stories of ancestral Conquistadors, Indian rebels, and "Crypto-Jews" (Spanish Jews who converted to Catholicism to survive the Inquisition, yet continued to practice their religion ...

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 2 - Born Champions
    0.0/10(40 votes)

    #11 - Born Champions

    S2:E2

    Billie Jean King, Derek Jeter and Rebecca Lobo learn about their family histories. King discovers that her grandmother was an orphan; Derek Jeter investigates his ancestors' lives as slaves; and Lobo finds out that an ancestor was forced to flee Spain because of his democratic ideals.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 5 - The Melting Pot
    0.0/10(38 votes)

    #12 - The Melting Pot

    S2:E5

    Chef Tom Colicchio learns the hardships his family endured in Northern Italy; chef Ming Tsai traces his roots back 2,000 years; chef Aarón Sánchez learns his Mexican roots include Spaniards, Africans and Native Americans.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 6 - We Come From People
    0.0/10(42 votes)

    #13 - We Come From People

    S2:E6

    Nas learns about his slave ancestors; Angela Bassett discovers that her family history includes an emancipation story; and Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, learns about the free people of color in her family's past

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 7 - Our People, Our Traditions
    0.0/10(30 votes)

    #14 - Our People, Our Traditions

    S2:E7

    Tony Kushner learns how the Holocaust impacted his ancestors; Carole King delves into the origins of her family name; and Alan Dershowitz discovers that an Hassidic synagogue started by his great-grandfather played a secret role in World War II.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 8 - The British Invasion
    0.0/10(38 votes)

    #15 - The British Invasion

    S2:E8

    Deepak Chopra, Sally Field and Sting’s ancestry demonstrates the extraordinary influence of the British Empire during the 18th and early 19th century.

    Director:Hazel Gurland-Pooler
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 9 - Ancient Roots
    0.0/10(39 votes)

    #16 - Ancient Roots

    S2:E9

    Tina Fey, George Stephanopoulos and David Sedaris, three quintessential voices in American life, descend from ancestors that were part of the wave of Greek immigrants that flooded America’s shores in the early decades of the 20th century.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episode 10 - Decoding Our Past Through DNA
    0.0/10(42 votes)

    #17 - Decoding Our Past Through DNA

    S2:E10

    Secrets encoded in their genomes challenge these guests’ ideas about their families’ histories and their identities today. This episode features Jessica Alba, Anderson Cooper, Valerie Jarrett, Governor Deval Patrick and more.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 1 - The Stories We Tell
    0.0/10(39 votes)

    #18 - The Stories We Tell

    S3:E1

    Discover the unsolved mysteries behind the family stories of political organizer Donna Brazile, actor Ty Burrell and artist Kara Walker as they learn how the legacy of slavery has shaped their identities.

    Director:Jesse Sweet
    Writers:Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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  19. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 2 - The Irish Factor
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #19 - The Irish Factor

    S3:E2

    Explore the shared Irish ancestry of three powerful social commentators of our times, Bill Maher, Soledad O'Brien, and Bill O'Reilly.

    Director:Josh Gleason
    Writers:Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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  20. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 3 - In Search Of Freedom
    0.0/10(47 votes)

    #20 - In Search Of Freedom

    S3:E3

    Learn how the ancestors of Maya Rudolph, Shonda Rhimes and Keenen Ivory Wayans struggled for freedom, and how each of these cultural trailblazers gain a new understanding of how they fit into this proud trajectory.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 4 - Tragedy + Time = Comedy
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #21 - Tragedy + Time = Comedy

    S3:E4

    Uncover a history of tragedies and triumphs in the families of three of America’s funniest men–Jimmy Kimmel, Norman Lear and Bill Hader—as they learn how comedy truly has its place in all aspects of life.

    Director:Hazel Gurland-Pooler
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 5 - Visionaries
    0.0/10(30 votes)

    #22 - Visionaries

    S3:E5

    Discover how the ancestors of business mogul Richard Branson and architects Maya Lin and Frank Gehry took audacious risks to create opportunities, and how their luck, ingenuity and chutzpah was passed on to these three visionaries.

    Director:Hazel Gurland-Pooler
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 6 - War Stories
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #23 - War Stories

    S3:E6

    Patricia Arquette, Senator John McCain, and Julianne Moore explore their genealogical heritage with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 7 - Family Reunions
    0.0/10(43 votes)

    #24 - Family Reunions

    S3:E7

    Uncover family mysteries about two legends of hip hop, Sean Combs and LL Cool J, through the use of DNA technology, which reveals information that shakes their very foundations.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Finding Your Roots Season 3 Episode 8 - The Pioneers
    0.0/10(39 votes)

    #25 - The Pioneers

    S3:E8

    Discover how Neil Patrick Harris, Gloria Steinem and Sandra Cisneros are connected to pioneers who broke new ground and paved the way for their modern day descendants to continue shaping our culture.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Worst Episodes Summary

"Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr." is the worst rated episode of "Finding Your Roots". It scored /10 based on 66 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 3/24/2012. This episode scored 0.0 points lower than the second lowest rated, "John Lewis and Cory Booker".