Henry Louis Gates, Jr. journeys with film director Ava DuVernay, actor S. Epatha Merkerson, and musician Questlove to the unexpected places where their ancestors were scattered by slavery, upending their notions of African American history—and their own family trees.

Henry Louis Gates uncovers the long-hidden roots of Broadway stars Nathan Lane and Leslie Odom, Jr., introducing them to relatives whose names and birthplaces they’ve never heard before. With only a handful of clues to guide him, Gates leads his guests back to unexpected places in Ireland, Barbados, and Africa, uncovering the stories of ancestors who laid the groundwork for their success.

Henry Louis Gates takes actors Claire Danes and Jeff Daniels on a journey into their roots, uncovering primal scenes from our nation’s past. Weaving together stories of soldiers and settlers, immigrants and entrepreneurs, Gates travels from World War One battlefields to Civil War prison camps to America’s most infamous witch hunt—offering his guests insight into what made them who they are today.

The Making of 6 Billion Others takes us behind the scenes of a most intriguing series. The idea of for this series came from Yann Arthus-Bertrand, an award-winning filmmaker who was filming Earth from Above in Mali. One day when the helicopter that he was filming from was out of commission, he tried to draw a portrait of contemporary humankind by asking questions about universal values. What is happiness, love, fear, success, family? What lessons...

"Family history begins with missing persons," Alison Light writes in Common People. We wonder about those we've lost, and those we never knew, about the long skein that led to us, and to here, and to now. So we start exploring. Most of us, however, give up a few generations back. We run into a gap, get embarrassed by a ne'er-do-well, or simply find our ancestors are less glamorous than we'd hoped. That didn't stop Alison Light: in the last weeks...

As is the case for an estimated 20,000 defectors who have built or are trying to build new lives in the South, Songgook is attempting to secure his entire family's freedom by arranging their defection. This phenomenon has been coined the "chain of escapes." His plan is a dangerous one; make a night time trek to the Tumen River, a border zone between China and North Korea and illegally smuggle his family out of China by boat into the international...

Summers in North Texas were hot and the winds only fanned the heated air as they blew across the gently flowing prairie. The jangle of the harnesses could be heard that summer day, as the horses pulling the wagon slowly made their way across the rolling land and through tall grasses. Small animals, rabbits and squirrels, scurried away from the unusual sounds made by the travelers, while startled field larks and quail flew away in a flurry of wings....