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00:00Viewers like you make this program possible.
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00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
00:17Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:20In this episode, we'll meet talk show host Sarah Haynes
00:25and actor and playwright Tracy Letts,
00:28two people whose ancestors made truly surprising journeys.
00:33So he's the first one here?
00:35You just met your original immigrant ancestor on this line of your family tree.
00:40Oh my gosh.
00:42That is almost 300 years ago.
00:44That's crazy.
00:48Born 1782.
00:49That's right.
00:50I wonder what was going on with these people.
00:54To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:59Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:04Wow.
01:05While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis
01:10to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:14How the hell do people find this stuff?
01:17And we've compiled it all into a book of life.
01:23A record of all of our discoveries.
01:26Is it weird I'm already crying?
01:28And a window into the hidden past.
01:32I didn't know any of this.
01:34My questions were met for all of my childhood with a shrug.
01:38We don't know.
01:38You had no idea.
01:40None of these things.
01:41I know nothing of this.
01:43I have identity.
01:45Deep American.
01:46Deep American identity.
01:47Yeah.
01:48I feel a little bit more ownership of this country.
01:54Tracy and Sarah both descend from people who came to North America
01:59long before the birth of the United States.
02:03In this episode, they're going to retrace the journeys those ancestors took,
02:10inspiring them to see themselves and our nation in a new way.
02:57Sarah Haynes has America's ear.
03:00It's Sarah's birthday.
03:02The beloved co-host of The View has built an enormous fan base
03:07because she can connect to almost anyone, anywhere, with warmth and humor.
03:13It's a rare talent, one that Sarah did not initially know she had.
03:20Sarah grew up in Newton, Iowa, a small town east of Des Moines.
03:26Her parents were both Air Force veterans,
03:29and Sarah was raised to pursue pragmatic goals.
03:33But after graduating from Smith with a degree in government, she decided to chase a dream
03:40and told her parents she wanted to move to New York City in order to try acting,
03:45a decision that was not well received.
03:50My dad said, I didn't send you to Smith College to be an actress.
03:54And I thought, oh, that's a truth bomb, but I'm grateful, but oh my gosh.
03:59Yeah, but what did you say in return?
04:01I said, okay.
04:04I mean, because my dad and my mom, but my dad specifically, I have such a reverence for him.
04:08So when he speaks, like it or not, I have deep respect for when he speaks.
04:14And so in my mind, I remember thinking, oh crap, I don't break with them very often.
04:20This is going to hurt regardless.
04:22Either I'm suppressing me or I'm disobeying in some ways them.
04:27And I knew what I had to do.
04:28I knew right away I was going to go anyway.
04:30But to look at my dad and think, oh my gosh, they gave me this whole life.
04:34Right.
04:35And now I'm saying, I want something else.
04:39Sarah's pursuit of that something else would follow a very circuitous path.
04:46In New York, she found a job, not as an actor, but as a production coordinator on the Today Show,
04:54where she would eventually work with hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb.
04:59The show was extremely popular, but also in need of younger talent.
05:04And Sarah seized an opportunity.
05:08I was watching producers do interviews, but they were off camera.
05:12And I said, I'll do all the research.
05:14I'll do all the work.
05:16I'll do your entire job for you if you let me do that interview and sit on camera.
05:20So I started doing interviews for the website.
05:23Now I'm making a reel and I'm thinking, great, I can't wait to send this out to audition for things.
05:29And Kathie Lee and Hoda were like, why wouldn't you come play with us?
05:32We have this fun hour.
05:34And I was like, people don't start at the Today Show.
05:36Right.
05:37That's where we end.
05:38Right.
05:38So I asked them, I go, what do I want to offer you?
05:41I'm not a trainer.
05:42I'm not a chef.
05:42I do what you do.
05:44And they were like, teach us something young.
05:47And so they were like, think of something you'd teach your mom.
05:49And so I remember the first segment I pitched was like how to get your digital photos and put them
05:54on things.
05:55Like back when the mugs were starting out.
05:56That's pretty good.
05:57It's a very mom segment, you know.
05:59So I did that.
06:00And they were like, that was fun.
06:01And eventually I pitched changing their Facebook page because the Facebook page had 200 friends for the most winning morning
06:10show at the time.
06:11And we should change it.
06:12Right.
06:12But this is how early it was, though.
06:14When I notified the PR at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg's sister flew in to meet with me to design the page.
06:22And the day that page launched, that real-time fan interaction, that was the day I started being on every
06:29day.
06:30I'm keeping you hip, and Hoda was asking about these.
06:32That moment changed Sarah's life forever.
06:35What fun it always is.
06:37So let's get right back.
06:37After five years with Kathie Lee and Hoda, she debuted as a guest host on The View, America's top-rated
06:45daytime talk show.
06:47Soon she would join full-time.
06:49And now she's one of the show's longest-tenured members.
06:54But even as she's risen to the top of her profession, Sarah has preserved the passion that first drew her
07:02to the camera.
07:03In fact, she credits her success to it.
07:08What do you think made you good at it?
07:11A genuine curiosity for people.
07:16I love hearing how people end up where they are.
07:20I'm not trying to take your job.
07:21Not ancestry, but I want to know, do you have siblings?
07:25Where did you grow up?
07:27Where are you in the birth order?
07:28Are you close with your family?
07:30I want to know what makes you tick, because I know that all those things make me tick.
07:35My second guest is writer and actor Tracy Letts.
07:40Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for August Osage County.
07:45One of the most brilliant plays in the history of American drama.
07:51Tracy grew up in Durant, Oklahoma, a small city near the Texas border.
07:58Much like Sarah Haynes, he comes from a close-knit family and adores his parents.
08:05But Tracy's parents were very different from Sarah's.
08:09His father taught literature.
08:13His mother was a writer.
08:15And Tracy was eager for their approval.
08:19I was an entertainer.
08:21I liked to entertain the family.
08:23I liked to get laughs.
08:25I liked being the center of attention in my family.
08:28And according to my parents, I was.
08:30I was entertaining, and I kept things pretty light for a while, anyway.
08:36But also, my parents put such great stock in artists.
08:42They just considered it kind of the highest calling.
08:46They wanted us to get out of Durant, Oklahoma.
08:50And they wanted us to have interesting lives.
08:54I can't tell you the number of times my mom expressed delight and satisfaction that my brother and I had
09:04not become bankers.
09:06She considered that just sort of the...
09:09The pits.
09:10Just the worst.
09:13Though Tracy's career choice would please his parents, it would also lead him down a very dark road.
09:21After dropping out of college, he moved to Dallas, then to Chicago, pursuing acting while trying to write plays.
09:30But success proved elusive, and Tracy soon bottomed out.
09:36I was hurting a lot of people around me.
09:39I had broken up with a longtime girlfriend, and she called my dad.
09:45She called my dad and said, look, we've broken up.
09:49This isn't about that, but I'm worried about Tracy.
09:51You should know he's not doing well.
09:54And I had recently gotten into heroin, and my dad flew up to Chicago.
10:00He found me, and he said what you say.
10:04He said, I love you, and I'm worried about you, and I hope you can get some help.
10:08Well, it's clear you're struggling, and I can't do this for you.
10:11You're going to have to do this for yourself.
10:13I hope you can find some help.
10:14And I had a friend who was sober, and I asked her to take me to a meeting.
10:19I've been sober ever since.
10:23Sobriety would prove Tracy's salvation.
10:25Not only did it improve his work, his work came to focus on his family.
10:32Indeed, August, Osage County is essentially an artistic retelling of the dark stories and deep secrets that Tracy had absorbed
10:43from his relatives.
10:44In a different family, such a play might have been destructive, but Tracy knew his audience well.
10:52Did that change your relationship to your mother and father once they had seen the plays when you were drawing
11:00on their trauma, in fact?
11:04I don't think so.
11:05It's a funny thing, you know.
11:07People like to see themselves represented.
11:09Yeah.
11:09And it kind of doesn't matter how you represent.
11:13In some ways, just the fact of representation is what's important.
11:17There's a story in August, Osage County.
11:20A character tells about a stepfather beating a child with a claw hammer.
11:26The gentleman in my family, to whom that happened, came to see the play.
11:32He was an old man.
11:33He was 80 years old.
11:35And when the play was over, he said, how the hell do you know the claw hammer story?
11:41And I said, well, I don't know.
11:43I just, you know, family lore.
11:44I've picked it up over time.
11:46And my parents didn't know the claw hammer story.
11:49And they turned to him and they said, you got beaten with a claw hammer?
11:54He laughed about it.
11:55He said, yeah, my Uncle Ray damn near killed me.
11:59But he roared with laughter in the theater, you know.
12:03He likes seeing himself represented.
12:04So my folks weren't daunted by my representation.
12:07And they understood that as an artist, that was my job and my right.
12:14So for you, playwriting is a version of writing a family history, preserving a family story.
12:20I think that's true.
12:23After spending time with my guests, it was clear that Tracy and Sarah had both been shaped by the values
12:30of their parents.
12:32Now, each is about to take a journey that will forever change how they understand the origins of those values.
12:41I started with Sarah and with her father, Richard Haynes.
12:45On the surface, Sarah and Richard may appear to have little in common.
12:51But they share a profound bond.
12:55My dad, I always described, even in my online dating profile where I met my husband, is I said, I'm
13:00looking for someone who does the right thing when no one's watching.
13:05Because that's my dad.
13:06Richard Haynes is a very stoic, serious person that when he speaks, you care and you want to hear because
13:12he doesn't overpopulate the airwaves.
13:15Like, I'm a talker.
13:17I'm silly.
13:17I'm always going for the moment.
13:20I'm a performer.
13:21He's not.
13:21He knows what's right and he knows what's wrong and he does those things.
13:27Richard's confidence may flow in part from his family.
13:30He grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, knowing that his roots in the region were deep and illustrious.
13:38In fact, there's a prominent mill near his childhood home that his ancestors have owned since the 1860s.
13:47But Richard had no idea where his family was before they got their mill.
13:53And Sarah hoped to learn.
13:55The answer lay deep in the past.
13:58With Sarah's seventh great-grandfather, a man named Jacob Hottenstein.
14:05Jacob was born in what is now Germany.
14:08But in 1731, he's listed on a resolution passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, back when Pennsylvania was still a British
14:19colony.
14:21Whereas, by the encouragement given by the Honorable William Penn, and by the permission of his late Majesty King George
14:29I,
14:30be it enacted that Jacob Hottlstein shall be to all intents and purposes deemed his Majesty's natural-born subject of
14:38this province of Pennsylvania, am I royalty?
14:40No.
14:43But this is the moment in 1731 that your seventh great-grandfather became a naturalized citizen of the British Empire.
14:54So he's the first one here?
14:56You just met your original immigrant ancestor on this line of your family tree.
15:16Jacob arrived in Pennsylvania when he was in his 20s, part of a wave of German immigration to the colony.
15:24But court records back in his hometown suggest that Jacob was not a typical immigrant.
15:31He was leaving a secret behind.
15:36Today, the innkeeper's maid came to me and duly reported that Jacob Hottlstein had slept with her several times and
15:43impregnated her,
15:44and that she was already a quarter of a year pregnant.
15:47Hottlstein, however, had tried to get her to abort such a pregnancy and had already brought her a handful of
15:52savin,
15:53saying that this would be quite useful and also wanted to bring her some laurel,
15:57which others had used in the past, with very good effect.
16:01Wow.
16:02This guy slept with the maid.
16:03In 1717, your ancestor was accused of impregnating a woman named Maria.
16:11Maria was a maid at a local inn, and when she became pregnant,
16:15he allegedly tried to force her into having an abortion using that combination of herbs.
16:21When she refused, he allegedly abandoned her.
16:26Is she okay? Was she okay?
16:30Maria was, in fact, physically okay.
16:33But she was not happy with Jacob.
16:36When her pregnancy was discovered, she sought help from a local pastor.
16:41He informed the baron who presided over their town, and Jacob found himself in jail.
16:49Jacob went to the clinker?
16:51He went to the, he did.
16:53Maria was placed in a local cottage, and then an investigation was launched.
16:58He went to jail?
16:59He went to jail?
17:00He went to jail.
17:00Does that surprise you?
17:02Obviously it does.
17:03Well, I mean, more just the times, like that getting someone pregnant could put you in jail.
17:08Mm-hmm.
17:08Is just, it's just, it just feels so antiquated on so many levels.
17:14I mean, the year was 1717.
17:16Well, we're back in antiquity.
17:20So, what do you imagine your ancestor had to say to defend himself?
17:24I, I, I don't know.
17:26Please turn the page.
17:30Special interrogation of Jacob Hottenstein, whether he knows the innkeeper's maid here.
17:34Yes, of course, because he lives here.
17:37Had he ever slept with her?
17:38No, he was pure.
17:40She was a wicked person.
17:43Hottenstein confesses that the maid revealed her pregnancy to him in the meadow about three weeks ago.
17:49And at the same time, he confesses that the maid told him that she had already eaten all sorts of
17:54things other than horseradish and yeast, but that it didn't help.
17:58He replied that she could eat whatever she wanted for his sake.
18:01It was none of his business.
18:03Oh, my gosh.
18:05Your ancestor, like a typical male, denied the allegations against her.
18:10She's a wicked person.
18:11A wicked person.
18:13What's it like to see that?
18:14Oh, I, I hope for better.
18:17I hope, like, I loved her or something noble.
18:19He sounds very shallow.
18:22Not a lot of character here.
18:24Who was telling the truth?
18:25I think Maria was.
18:27You think Maria was?
18:27I'm going to go with Maria on this.
18:31Sarah's intuition proved correct.
18:34After a witness came forward to corroborate Maria's story, Jacob admitted to having had a relationship with her and was
18:43forced to face the consequences.
18:46According to the documents discussed and the minutes kept, it is clear that Jacob Hottenstein was the perpetrator of the
18:52impregnated innkeeper's maid.
18:54The gracious lordship has finally graciously resolved to release him in return for which he must pay a fine of
19:0030 guilders.
19:01And also pay the child five guilders annually for 10 years for its alimony and livelihood.
19:07She had the baby.
19:08She had the baby.
19:09Wow.
19:12That is bonkers.
19:15As it turns out, Maria did not just have one baby.
19:19She had twins.
19:21And she would go on to marry a farmhand and give birth to 10 more children.
19:28As for Jacob, he seems to have escaped his responsibilities by heading off to Pennsylvania.
19:36What's it been like to learn this story?
19:39It's like, it was mind-blowing just to know these people exist.
19:42But when you look at their names next to these years, you just see these in your head, these old
19:46visuals of people that led proper lives.
19:49You know, it's a different time.
19:50And it reminds you that they were always just human, just of a different time.
19:57Yeah.
19:57And passionate.
19:59They had feelings.
20:00They had romps and meadows.
20:01This isn't the, you know, when you studied the history of immigration to the United States.
20:06This is not what we learned of.
20:07Not in the school books.
20:09No.
20:12Though Jacob may have immigrated under a cloud, his family would flourish in their new country.
20:18Indeed, his son, David, would help to found our nation.
20:24David is Sarah's sixth great-grandfather.
20:28He was born in Pennsylvania around 1734.
20:32And he was roughly 40 years old when the American Revolution broke out.
20:37That was old for a soldier.
20:39But David joined a patriot militia.
20:45Oh, my gosh.
20:50Wow.
20:52That's really cool.
20:58I am deeply American.
21:00You are deeply American and deeply German, too.
21:03Oh, God, I bring that German back.
21:04Yeah.
21:05I don't know how much I want to be with Jacob right now.
21:07No, no.
21:07I much prefer his son.
21:10Unfortunately, this story was about to take a somber turn.
21:15While David may have been a patriot, a tax register from the year 1779 shows that he was also something
21:24far less noble.
21:27Hottenstein David, 200 acres of land, six horses, one bound servant, and one slave.
21:36One slave.
21:39Have you ever contemplated even the possibility that your ancestors may have been enslavers?
21:45I think so.
21:46Not understanding necessarily why or having a mental explanation other than if we've been here a long time in this
21:54country and slavery was such a huge part of the economy of the country.
22:00That the likelihood, I mean, it's kind of you hope you're one that wasn't that way.
22:06But if even hearing that they had mills and property and land, I kind of started to see a trend
22:12that, yeah.
22:18Pennsylvania would begin to abolish slavery in 1780, and it appears that David relinquished his human property soon after.
22:28But even so, the very fact that he'd owned another human being at all left Sarah struggling to make sense
22:36of her ancestor.
22:39It's almost unfathomable, as much as you're going back in history and you know that the world was a different
22:45place, the country was a different place, it's, it's, you know, here people are flocking for opportunity, for something better,
22:53to create a life, to maybe dodge their own mistakes, and yet they're going to own a human on, like,
23:00I, I, it doesn't track.
23:02It's not consistent.
23:04But what this shows is that family history is complicated.
23:08Yeah.
23:09You know, there are no saints and no, no devils.
23:12No.
23:13You know?
23:14No.
23:16Like Sarah, Tracy Letts came to me knowing nothing about an entire branch of his family tree, but for a
23:25very different reason.
23:27Tracy's mother, Billy Dean Gibson, had often claimed to have Cherokee ancestors.
23:34But in Oklahoma, long the home of various native peoples, such claims are common and usually wrong.
23:43And Tracy and his brothers never believed them.
23:47But our researchers uncovered an obituary for Billy Dean's great-grandfather, a man named Jack Burgess.
23:55And it suggests that Billy Dean knew what she was talking about.
24:01An old-timer gone.
24:03Jack S. Burgess was buried at Oak Lawn Cemetery Sunday.
24:08He was well known here, where he had resided the greater portion of his life.
24:12He was a Cherokee Indian.
24:14As a boy and young man, Jack Burgess chased the deer, buffalo, and wild coyote over the site of the
24:22present city of Tulsa.
24:24So, your family lore appears to have been true.
24:27According to that article, your great-great-grandfather was Cherokee.
24:31What's it like to see that in black and white?
24:33Well, it's great.
24:36My mom is taking her revenge for all the teasing we gave her over the years about saying that she
24:42had Cherokee blood.
24:44I'm telling you, anybody who's from Oklahoma claims Cherokee heritage, and it so often turns out not to be accurate.
24:53And so, my mom used to claim it, and we teased her about it as if it were not true.
24:59And it turns out, Jack Burgess was a Cherokee Indian.
25:05Tracy's mother would have been pleased to know that Jack Burgess was not her only Cherokee ancestor.
25:12Not by a long shot.
25:13In fact, we were able to trace her indigenous roots back to a man named William Burgess, who was born
25:22in the 1780s in what we now call the Old Cherokee Nation, an immense tract of land in the southeastern
25:31United States.
25:33William is Tracy's fourth great-grandfather and the first of his ancestors to settle in Oklahoma.
25:40But the story of how he got there is agonizing.
25:44In 1830, the United States government initiated what became known as the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of roughly
25:5460,000 Native people from their traditional homes in the eastern and southern United States to a new territory in
26:03the west, a harrowing journey of more than 800 miles.
26:08For the Cherokee, the forced removal began in 1838.
26:14But curiously, we discovered that William was willing to leave long before that.
26:22Muster roll of Cherokee Indians who enrolled to immigrate west of the Mississippi River under the direction of Benjamin F.
26:31Curry.
26:321831, December the 12th, William Burgess.
26:36Total in party, 10.
26:39Any idea what you're looking at?
26:40Not really.
26:41This is a list of Cherokees who signed up to leave voluntarily, the Old Cherokee Nation, and move westward in
26:481831.
26:49Oh, wow.
26:50And if you notice the date, this is before the Trail of Tears.
26:53Before the forced removal, some government official comes out and says, who wants to sign up for this?
27:00Mm-hmm.
27:01And they say, we do.
27:04Why?
27:07We can't answer Tracy's question definitively, but we do have a theory.
27:13William appears on this list with at least nine other members of his family.
27:18They were among the first Cherokees to make the journey west.
27:23And we believe that they left willingly because they preferred to take control of their own destiny, rather than wait
27:31for the federal government to compel them.
27:35Wow.
27:39That's really interesting.
27:41It is, isn't it?
27:42It's fascinating.
27:44Yeah.
27:44And it wasn't likely as brutal as the journey made by the thousands forcefully removed several years later.
27:51But still, it was by no means easy.
27:53They likely traveled for several months, likely mostly on foot, for hundreds of miles.
28:00Right.
28:01Can you imagine?
28:02No.
28:03At least they were in the spring.
28:05Yeah.
28:06You have deep Cherokee roots in modern-day Oklahoma.
28:10Did you ever imagine that this branch of your family had been there so early?
28:18I don't suppose I did imagine that, no.
28:22The fact that this has not really been passed down in any kind of solid way through my family history,
28:33through verbal history.
28:35I don't know.
28:36Like I say, we teased mom about her, quote-unquote, Cherokee heritage.
28:42She used to play into the joke, too.
28:44She'd say, well, my great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess, or whatever.
28:48She played into the joke.
28:50But what's your theory?
28:51How could this knowledge be lost?
28:54I don't know.
28:54I suppose along with assimilation, we're talking about moving from chasing the deer into the, quote-unquote, civilized world.
29:04Maybe along with that assimilation also comes...
29:07Obliteration.
29:08Obliteration.
29:09Mm-hmm.
29:09Shame.
29:10Mm-hmm.
29:12Code switching.
29:13Mm-hmm.
29:13Right?
29:14Yeah.
29:14This is an act of imagination to even try and think of what that must be.
29:19But we can only imagine.
29:20We can only speculate.
29:21Because we don't know.
29:22Right.
29:23You know?
29:25Though we'll never know what Tracy's ancestors were thinking, we were able to glean a little more insight into their
29:33lives.
29:33In the National Archives, we uncovered what was called a spoiling claim, which William Burgess filed in 1842.
29:44It describes the property he left behind in the East, hoping that he might be compensated for its loss.
29:52The claim was denied by the federal government, but the claim was denied by the federal government, but it contains
29:56a detailed list of all that William owned.
30:00So he's living in 1842.
30:02So he's living in this situation in that Eastern Cherokee territory.
30:06Right.
30:07And he gives this up in order to make the move in advance of the Trail of Tears, because he
30:14sees which way the wind's blowing.
30:16And then after he makes the move...
30:17He files a claim.
30:18He files a claim.
30:19Right.
30:20I think I gave all this up.
30:21Right.
30:21And they say, we're not paying that claim.
30:23No, because you did this voluntarily.
30:25Wow.
30:26He lost it all.
30:27What's it like to learn this, realizing that it directly affected your own ancestors?
30:33Well, I'm not surprised by that.
30:38But my anger over the treatment of Native peoples in our country isn't changed by this information, though I do
30:50suppose I have a little more ownership of that anger in a way, right?
30:55Just in the evidence of it.
30:57But the truth is, wrong is wrong.
31:00Mm-hmm.
31:01Wrong is wrong whether you're related by blood, by heritage.
31:05Wrong is wrong.
31:09There was one more beat to this story.
31:12We uncovered an application for membership in the Cherokee Nation, filed by one of William's sons in the year 1906.
31:23It not only lists the tribal names of William and his wife, it also lists the names of William's parents,
31:30adding yet another level to this branch of Tracy's family church.
31:37Well, you now know the names of your Cherokee ancestors going back to your fifth-grade grandparents in a continuous
31:47line.
31:48That's more information than I expected to get.
31:51Hmm.
31:52And I want to call my mom, but she's dead.
31:55Yeah.
31:55So I can't.
31:56But it's, I want to tell my mom.
32:00Hmm.
32:01It's all true.
32:02Yeah.
32:03I'm sorry, mama.
32:04Yeah, right.
32:05Sorry we teased you about it.
32:07Yeah, it's great.
32:09What is that added identity, as it were?
32:12How do you process that?
32:13How does this fact complicate you?
32:15You know, a couple of my plays, August Osage County and my play The Minutes, my most recent play, take
32:24on at least partly characters of Native American heritage.
32:28And there's always some question, especially very contemporary playwriting, who gets to tell the story, right?
32:37That's a question that we're often met with.
32:39Now, I'm not going to go take this book out and put it on the rehearsal table and say, I
32:45get to tell this story.
32:46And yet, I admit that the sense of connection with that family line, it's evocative for me because of the
32:59stories that I've told and the stories that have been told me simply about growing up in Oklahoma.
33:05Right.
33:06So, I don't know.
33:07It brings up a lot of things, a lot of feelings.
33:11We'd already traced Sarah Haynes' father's roots back more than 300 years.
33:18Now, turning to her mother's family tree, Sarah was worried we wouldn't get nearly so far.
33:26Sarah's mother, Sandra May Haynes, grew up in Neotashay, Kansas, a tiny, hard-scrappled community.
33:35And Sarah didn't expect that we'd be able to learn much at all about Sandra's ancestors.
33:41But Sarah was in for a surprise.
33:44The story begins with her great-great-grandfather, a man named Michael Stoner.
33:50We found Michael in the 1860 census, living in Illinois on the eve of the American Civil War, a discovery
34:00that raised a compelling question.
34:03Have you given much thought to how the Civil War may have affected your ancestors?
34:08No.
34:09Please tell me there are no more slaves.
34:11Well, Michael would have been about 32 years at the time.
34:14Okay.
34:14Which side?
34:15You gotta guess.
34:16Please, God, just go with the North.
34:17Please, please, please.
34:19If I've done anything right in my life.
34:21I'm gonna go with, please, the North.
34:23Okay.
34:24Please turn the page.
34:31Oh, my gosh.
34:33He joined the Union Army.
34:35He made the right decision.
34:38I knew I had good people somewhere.
34:43But you had a patriot, too, remember?
34:45We also had a slave.
34:46So we're, we're, I just feel so much better right now.
34:51Michael would prove to be well worth Sarah's admiration.
34:54Not only did he volunteer for the Union Army, he re-enlisted after his first term and served through the
35:02end of the war.
35:03And then, when the fighting stopped, Michael did something even more remarkable.
35:09Something that would change the trajectory of his entire family.
35:14In 1872, Michael moved his wife and their six children, roughly 500 miles west,
35:22to purchase land in Kansas, near what is now Neodoshae.
35:28It must have been a grueling journey.
35:32And its end brought sorrow.
35:35Michael's wife passed away soon after arriving.
35:39But Michael was not to be deterred.
35:42In 1880, he got married again, to a fellow settler named Nancy Burkett.
35:48And the two started a new family.
35:51A family that began with a girl named Lulu Stoner.
35:55Sarah's great-grandmother.
36:00And, of course, she was followed by your grandmother, Alberta, in 1918.
36:04And then your mother, Sandra, in 1941.
36:08That's the lineage right there.
36:10Wow.
36:11Wow.
36:12And you never heard any stories about this?
36:14No.
36:15Not anything about how they got there.
36:18Some of the names, the stoner last name I knew.
36:22But nothing else.
36:23What's it like to know that you come from these people?
36:25These people are tough.
36:26This track's for my mom.
36:27Like, the whole Kansas, like, out in the country, you know, fighters, survivors.
36:33That's definitely my mom.
36:35Yeah?
36:35Yeah.
36:37Kansas posed an array of challenges to Sarah's family.
36:41But it also offered opportunities.
36:44And the move seems to have transformed Michael.
36:49Records showed that he'd worked as a blacksmith in Illinois.
36:53But in his new home, he demonstrated a wide array of talents, as evidenced by a large number of newspaper
37:01articles.
37:03The appointed officers at Neodoshae for the ensuing year are M.C. Stoner, street commissioner, and marshal.
37:10Mm-hmm.
37:11Well, hello.
37:12Yeah.
37:13And then April 30th, 1875, county court M.C. Stoner was appointed constable for Neodoshae Township.
37:21Mm-hmm.
37:21We are going places now.
37:22November 19th, 1875, township officers Neodoshae justices M.C. Stoner.
37:28Mm-hmm.
37:28September 5th, 1879, M.C. Stoner has been hired by the citizens and city council as marshal and night watchman.
37:35That sounds like Game of Thrones.
37:37Mr. Stoner will make the best man we have had in this capacity.
37:41Mm-hmm.
37:42August 14th, 1885, M.C. Stoner has been appointed police judge by the city council.
37:48How about that?
37:49You never heard anything about this?
37:51Nothing.
37:52Your great-great-grandfather did not stay a blacksmith for very long.
37:56Once he got to Kansas, he changed his life.
37:59He held the titles of Justice of the Peace, Conveyancer, Marshal, Night Watchman, and Police Judge.
38:05And that's in just a handful of the newspaper mentions that our team found.
38:09We found a lot more that we just didn't have time to show you.
38:12Isn't that amazing?
38:13That's really cool.
38:15You had no idea.
38:17None of these things are attractive.
38:19I know nothing of this.
38:21I'm so impressed right now.
38:25Sarah was about to become even more impressed.
38:29Shifting to another branch of her mother's family tree, we traced back from Kansas to Colonial Massachusetts
38:37and introduced her to a man named Henry Adams.
38:43Henry is Sarah's 11th great-grandfather.
38:47He settled in Boston sometime before the year 1640.
38:52And when we mapped his family tree, we saw that it connects Sarah to a very significant person.
39:02You know who that is?
39:03He looks like a lot of people in my history book.
39:07That is the second president of the United States.
39:09That's John Adams.
39:09That is John Adams.
39:11He is your third cousin, nine times removed.
39:28Oh, my God.
39:30I'm related to a president.
39:36And he was a good one.
39:37He was a good one.
39:39They weren't all.
39:40He was a good one.
39:43Oh, my God.
39:47Sarah's link to John Adams also links her to his son, the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy
39:57Adams.
39:57These two presidents are not the only notable figures on the Adams line.
40:03Sarah is also related to the famed patriot Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
40:14Him, too?
40:15Him, too.
40:21I feel like I'm getting punked.
40:25It's for real.
40:26What's your mother going to say?
40:28I hope my mom feels a deep pride in hearing all this, because coming from so little and not being
40:38able to pass on much in knowledge or pictures or stories because of, you know, they were just trying to
40:44eat.
40:44You know, like that was all they did.
40:46That's important.
40:47It's important.
40:48But none of this, to know this is all behind and comes through her.
40:53I mean, I don't think my mom ever felt good enough for my dad.
40:59Yeah.
41:00Because my dad came from such a different background.
41:02Uh-huh.
41:02To know this was what my mom had the whole time.
41:07Wow.
41:10We'd already introduced Tracy Letts to Native Americans on his mother's family tree.
41:17Now turning to his paternal roots, Tracy expected that we'd explore similar terrain.
41:25His father, Dennis Letts, grew up knowing that some of his ancestors were members of the Muscogee Creek Nation.
41:33And we did have a story for Tracy about those ancestors.
41:38But first, we had a very different kind of story to tell.
41:42It begins with Tracy's third great-grandfather, a man named Silas Barber.
41:49We found Silas living in Texas in 1860.
41:54Just months before shots were fired at Fort Sumter, which brought me back to a question I'd ask Sarah.
42:03Have you given much thought to how the Civil War may have affected your ancestors?
42:08Not at all.
42:10Not given it any thought.
42:12Never heard anything about Civil War history in my family.
42:16Silas would have been about 38 years old at the time.
42:20What do you think he did during the war?
42:26He did not fight in the war.
42:28Okay.
42:29That's a good guess.
42:31Please turn the page.
42:32Let's see.
42:33Oh!
42:35Would you please read the transcribed section?
42:38Fought on the wrong side.
42:40Confederate.
42:40Company B.
42:4210th Regiment.
42:42Texas.
42:43Silas H. Barber.
42:44Private.
42:45Age 38.
42:47Enrolled on October 10th, 1861.
42:50Your ancestor joined the Confederate army.
42:52Well, that's too bad.
42:53What's it like to learn that?
42:55It's a surprise because I've never heard Civil War associated with my family in any capacity.
43:02Right.
43:0238-year-old private in the Confederacy sounds like a—it just sounds awful.
43:08Everything about it sounds bad.
43:10What would your father say?
43:11Oh!
43:13He would not have much patience with that one.
43:19As it turns out, Silas himself would be sorely challenged as a soldier.
43:26In January of 1863, he was stationed at a Confederate fort on the Arkansas River when the Union Army attacked,
43:36supported by a fleet of gunboats.
43:38The fort was completely overrun, and Silas found himself in a very unfortunate situation.
43:48Prisoners at Camp Douglas.
43:50S.H. Barber.
43:51Regiment, 10th Texas.
43:53Company B.
43:53Where captured?
43:54Arkansas Post.
43:55When captured?
43:56January 11th, 1863.
43:58Your ancestor was captured.
44:00Good!
44:01Good!
44:02He should have been captured.
44:04Did you ever think you had an ancestor who had been imprisoned?
44:07Oh, yeah.
44:08Oh, yeah.
44:09I would have bet on prison for a lot of them.
44:11But imagine what that was like.
44:13I wouldn't imagine that was any fun, but yeah, good.
44:20Silas was sent to a Union prison in Illinois.
44:24He would be exchanged after only a few months.
44:28But he did not return to the South unscathed.
44:32In May of 1863, he appears in the records of a Virginia hospital,
44:36where he was being treated for debilitas, a Latin term for enfeeblement,
44:43also used to describe feelings of depression or melancholy.
44:49Silas spent just over a month recuperating.
44:52You want to guess what happened to him next?
44:55He was fine.
44:57He went back to active duty.
45:00No, really.
45:01He went back to active duty.
45:04He was serious about the Confederacy.
45:07Silas, what were you thinking?
45:10Why would he do?
45:12I mean...
45:12It's so mystifying to me why he would want to fight at all,
45:19why he would want to fight for the Confederacy,
45:22why he would want to fight at 38 years old,
45:24and certainly after being imprisoned
45:27and suffering from melancholy and debilitas and enfeeblement.
45:33I mean, why would you want to go back into battle?
45:35You had a strange ancestor.
45:37Yeah, he was passionate.
45:39He was passionate.
45:40That's right.
45:41We don't know why Silas cared so much about the Confederacy.
45:45But as we looked into the records that his family left behind,
45:49we found what might be a clue.
45:51His father, Tracy's fourth-great-grandfather,
45:56was a man named Alan Barber.
45:59And the 1830 census shows that Alan had a vested interest
46:04in the Southern cause.
46:07Slaves, one female between the age of 36 and under 55.
46:14Your fourth-great-grandfather was a slave owner.
46:18Well, that sucks.
46:19That's just terrible.
46:21The Barber's are not impressing me.
46:24Alan's father, your fifth-great-grandfather,
46:26was a man named James Barber.
46:28He died in 1842, and as Will mentions,
46:31that he owned two enslaved persons.
46:33So did you ever think about having ancestors
46:36who may have enslaved human beings on your family tree?
46:39Well, have I thought about it?
46:42Sure, coming as I do from Oklahoma and meaning the southern part of the United States.
46:50Would I have thought it possible?
46:52Sure.
46:53So I'm disgusted.
46:55I'm not surprised.
46:56I'm like the Barber's.
47:00Maybe that's why I didn't know about them.
47:05We now turn to the part of Tracy's father's family that he thought he knew better.
47:11His Muscogee Creek ancestry.
47:14It's extensive, and it contains one particularly intriguing individual,
47:20a man named Alexander Posey.
47:23Alexander is Tracy's second cousin four times removed,
47:28and the two seem to have inherited some of the same talents.
47:32In his day, Alexander was a renowned poet
47:37who chronicled the hopes of his people.
47:41I pledge you by the moon and sun,
47:44as long as stars their course shall run,
47:48long as day shall meet my view,
47:50peace shall reign between us two.
47:53I pledge you by those peaks of snow,
47:57as long as streams to ocean flow,
47:58long as years their youth renew,
48:02peace shall reign between us two.
48:06I came from mother soil and cave.
48:09You came from pathless sea and wave.
48:14Strangers fought our battles through.
48:16Peace shall reign between us two.
48:20Nice.
48:21What do you think of that?
48:22I think that's great.
48:23What would your dad say?
48:25My dad would like that,
48:26and he would like that there's a poet in the family,
48:28and he'd like this a lot more
48:30than he'd like these bastard,
48:32these damn barbers.
48:34He'd like these posies a lot more than these barbers.
48:38Alexander is related to Tracy
48:40through his third great-grandmother,
48:42a woman named Sarah Posey.
48:45Digging deeper,
48:47we were able to identify Sarah's grandmother,
48:50Tracy's fifth great-grandmother,
48:52who was born on Muskogee tribal lands
48:56in the 1780s.
48:59Seeing yet another branch of his native roots
49:02laid out in such detail
49:04was deeply moving to Tracy,
49:07and he was eager to share the news with his children.
49:12My son is six years old.
49:15He's in the first grade,
49:16and he just had his first lesson
49:20in his first grade class
49:22about indigenous people.
49:25Oh, wow.
49:25And he came home,
49:27and he started telling us
49:28about the lessons that he had learned.
49:30And my wife said to him,
49:34you know,
49:35we think that you actually,
49:39you yourself,
49:40come from a family line
49:42that includes indigenous people.
49:45And he reacted strongly to that.
49:49I mean,
49:49there was a moment of,
49:51oh, really?
49:51Again,
49:52we love it when we can relate it to ourselves.
49:56Sure.
49:56So the fact that I can now
49:57take this to him
49:59and say,
49:59you in fact do,
50:01and here,
50:01not only do you,
50:03but here are their names.
50:04Your fifth-grade grandfather
50:05is his sixth-grade grandfather.
50:06Right.
50:07Yeah.
50:08That's pretty cool.
50:09That's very cool.
50:12The paper trail had run out
50:14for each of my guests.
50:15It was time to show them
50:17their full family trees.
50:20Oh, my gosh.
50:21Whoa.
50:23Now filled with names
50:25they'd never heard before.
50:27For each,
50:28it was a moment of all.
50:29Oh, my gosh.
50:31That's a lot.
50:33It's fantastic.
50:35This is the best gift
50:36I've ever been given.
50:37Offering the chance
50:38to see themselves
50:40in a new light.
50:43Look at all these people.
50:45Look at all this history.
50:47It's amazing.
50:48This is just so crazy.
50:51I have identity.
50:53You big time.
50:54I like...
50:55Deep American...
50:56Deep American identity.
50:58Yeah.
50:59My time with my guests
51:01was running out,
51:02but I still had
51:03one surprise to share.
51:05When we compared
51:06Tracy's genetic profile
51:08to that of others
51:09who've been in the series,
51:11we found a match.
51:13Evidence of a distant cousin
51:15he never could have imagined
51:17he had.
51:19Okay.
51:20I'm nervous.
51:22Okay.
51:24You ready to meet your cousin?
51:25Sure.
51:26Please turn the page.
51:30Oh, that's fantastic.
51:37Tracy shares a long segment
51:40of DNA
51:41with actor Julia Roberts.
51:44They also share an experience.
51:47The two work together
51:49on the film version
51:50of August Osage County,
51:53Tracy's breakout hit.
51:56And I adore her. She's just great. We had such a great time. She's just such a lovely
52:02person. That's amazing. That's great. That's the end of our journey with Tracy Letts and Sarah
52:10Haynes. Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another
52:17episode of Finding Your Roots.
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