Comedians Carol Burnett and Niecy Nash appear on “Secret Lives,” an episode of Finding Your Roots. “Niecy and Carol came to me with fundamental questions about their parents as well as their grandparents,” says host Henry Louis Gates.
Carol Burnett had been uncertain about which of her grandmother’s husbands was her grandfather, as she had been told different stories. “With DNA alone, we were able to solve this mystery,” explains Gates. She also learns that she’s eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution through New York patriot Lambert Burget.
Niecy Nash received an unexpected surprise from genetic testing. “When we tested her DNA, we saw that she didn’t have any matches to anyone related to the man whom she believed to be her paternal grandfather,” says Gates. However, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore uncovered the identity of Nash’s biological grandfather, and Gates’s researchers then traced this line back to 1824. Gates also tells her of an enslaved fourth great-grandfather in Arkansas, Aaron Cobb, who eventually became a landowner after being freed.
Finding Your Roots airs Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.