This week's Episode 10 and season finale of Finding Your Roots Season 11, featured actor Laurence Fishburne and host Henry Louis Gates Jr as guests. Although the season started slow, the past three episodes have been really interesting. This episode is classic case study that shows the power of DNA to solve long standing mysteries. Both stories were very powerful, and the weaving of stories between Fishburne learning the identity of his biological father and Gates learning the full story of his 2nd-great-grandmother made for a very compelling, outstanding episode.
It's really cool how a combination of YDNA and autosomal DNA went into tracking down Fishburne's biological father's family. I wonder how long research that took to uncover, as the team also needed to convince another possible connection to test and validate the theories. It was later revealed this key tester was a half-sister, and that Fishburne had two half-siblings, who he met at the end of the episode.
The portion of the episode on Dr. Gates' story was also really cool, and given the investment of his time in shaping Finding Your Roots, it was great to see the show give back to him in uncovering a long standing mystery for his side the family. The fact that he was able to reveal these new discoveries in front of a timely gathering of close and related family made the story even more relevant for them, and added to the episode.
This is a timely, important series and I hope it returns for a 12th season.
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