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Finding Your Roots - Season 12 - Episode 06: Westward Bound
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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
00:24and actor and playwright Tracy Letts,
00:28two people whose ancestors made truly surprising journeys.
00:33So he's the first one here?
00:34You just met your original immigrant ancestor
00:38on this line of your family tree.
00:40Oh my gosh.
00:41That is almost 300 years ago.
00:44That's crazy.
00:47Born 1782.
00:49That's right.
00:50I wonder what was going on with these people.
00:53To 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.
01:25Is 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,
02:09inspiring them to see themselves and our nation in a new way.
02:56Sarah 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,
03:37she decided to chase a dream and told her parents she wanted to move to New York City
03:43in order to try acting, a 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,
04:53where 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, I'll do all the work, I'll do your entire job for you
05:17if 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.
05:33And I was like, people don't start at the Today Show.
05:37That's where we end.
05:38So I asked them, I go, what do I want to offer you?
05:41I'm not a trainer, I'm not a chef, I do what you do.
05:44And they were like, teach us something young.
05:46And 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
05:53and put them on things, like 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, and they were like, that was fun.
06:01And eventually I pitched changing their Facebook page because the Facebook page had 200 friends
06:07for the most winning morning show at the time, and we should change it.
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
06:20to design the page.
06:22And the day that page launched, that real-time fan interaction, that was the day I started
06:28being on every day.
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.
06:37After five years with Kathie Lee and Hoda, she debuted as a guest host on The View, America's
06:44top-rated daytime talk show.
06:47Soon she would join full-time, and 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
07:01her to 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.
07:34My second guest is writer and actor Tracy Letts, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for August Osage
07:44County, one 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.
08:12His 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, and I kept things pretty light for, for a while anyway.
08:35Mm-hmm.
08:36But also my parents put such great stock in artists.
08:41Mm-hmm.
08:42They, they just considered it kind of the highest calling.
08:46Mm-hmm.
08:46They wanted us to get out of Durant, Oklahoma.
08:51Right.
08:51And they wanted us to have interesting lives.
08:54Mm-hmm.
08:55I 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, the 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.
09:39Mm-hmm.
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, he's not doing well.
09:53Mm-hmm.
09:54And I had recently gotten into heroin, and, and my dad flew up to Chicago.
10:00He found me, and he said, he said what you say.
10:04He said, I love you, and I'm worried about you, and I, I hope you can get some help.
10:08It's clear you're struggling, and I, 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, and I had a friend who was sober, and I asked her to
10:18take me to a meeting.
10:19I've been sober ever since.
10:23Sobriety would prove Tracy's salvation.
10:26Not only did it improve his work, his work came to focus on his family.
10:31Indeed, 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.
10:53Did 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?
11:03I don't think so.
11:05It's a funny thing, you know.
11:06People 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, a 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.
11:45And 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?
11:53He 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.
12:02He 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.
12:19I 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.
12:46On 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.
13:04Because that's my dad.
13:06He is a very stoic, serious person that when he speaks, you care and you want to hear because he
13:12doesn't overpopulate the airwaves.
13:15Like, I'm a talker.
13:16I'm silly.
13:17I'm always going for the moment.
13:19I'm a performer.
13:20He'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.
13:31He 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.
13:46But Richard had no idea where his family was before they got their mill, and Sarah hoped to learn.
13:55The answer lay deep in the past with 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, be it enacted that Jacob Hottlstein shall be to all intents and purposes deemed his majesty's natural-born subject
14:38of this province of Pennsylvania.
14:39Am I royalty?
14:41No.
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.
15:04Oh my gosh.
15:06That is almost 300 years ago.
15:09I knew we'd been here a minute, but I did not know that.
15:13That's crazy.
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 and 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, saying that this would be quite useful and also wanted to bring her some laurel, which others had used
15:58in the past, with very good effect.
16:01Wow, this guy slept with the maid.
16:04In 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, he allegedly tried to force her into
16:17having an abortion using that combination of herbs.
16:20When she refused, he allegedly abandoned her.
16:26Is she okay? Was she okay?
16:29Maria was, in fact, physically okay, but 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.
17:00Does that surprise you?
17:01Obviously, it does.
17:03Well, I mean, more just the times, like that getting someone pregnant could put you in jail, is just, it's
17:10just, it just feels so antiquated on so many levels.
17:14I mean, the year was 1717, yeah.
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.
17:36Had 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, and at the
17:50same time, he confesses that the maid told him that she had already eaten all sorts of things other than
17:55horseradish and yeast, but that it didn't help.
17:57He 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 it.
18:10She's a wicked person.
18:11A wicked person.
18:12What's it like to see that?
18:14Oh, I, I hope for better.
18:16I hope, like, I loved her or something noble.
18:19He sounds very shallow.
18:22Uh-huh.
18:22Not a lot of character here.
18:23Who was telling the truth?
18:24I think Maria was.
18:27You think Maria was?
18:27I'm gonna 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.
18:53The gracious lordship has finally graciously resolved to release him in return for which he must pay a fine of
19:0030 guilders.
19:01Uh-huh.
19:02And 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, but when you look at their names next
19:43to these years, you just see these in your head, these old visuals of people that led proper lives.
19:49Uh-huh.
19:49You know, it's a different time.
19:50Uh-huh.
19:51And it, 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.
20:05Yeah.
20:05To the United States.
20:06This is not what we learned of.
20:07Not in the school books.
20:08No.
20:11Though Jacob may have immigrated under a cloud, his family would flourish in their new country.
20:19Indeed, 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, and he was roughly 40 years old when the American Revolution broke out.
20:37That was old for a soldier, but David joined a patriot militia.
20:45Oh, my gosh.
20:50Wow.
20:51That's really cool.
20:53Yeah.
20:58I am deeply American.
21:00You are deeply American and deeply German, too.
21:03Oh, God, I bring that German back.
21:04Yeah.
21:04I don't know how much I want to be with Jacob right now.
21:06No, no.
21:07I much prefer his son.
21:11Unfortunately, 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.
21:37One slave.
21:39Have you ever contemplated even the possibility that your ancestors may have been enslavers?
21:44I 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.
22:00Mm-hmm.
22:00That the likelihood, I mean, it's kind of you hope it doesn't, you hope you're one that wasn't that way.
22:06But if even hearing that they had mills and property and land and I kind of started to see a
22:11trend that.
22:12Mm-hmm.
22:14Yeah.
22:17Pennsylvania would begin to abolish slavery in 1780.
22:22And 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.
22:47It's, you know, here people are flocking for opportunity, for something better, to create a life, to maybe dodge their
22:55own mistakes, and yet they're going to own a human.
22:59Mm-hmm.
22:59Like, it doesn't track.
23:02Mm-hmm.
23:02It's not consistent.
23:04Mm-hmm.
23:04But what this shows is that family history is complicated.
23:08Yeah.
23:09You know, there are no saints and 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.
23:42And 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.
24:07He 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.
24:49And 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.
24:58And 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.
25:43In 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.
26:21Muster 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.
26:38Any 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,
27:30rather than wait for the federal government to compel them.
27:35Wow.
27:40That'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.
27:54They likely traveled for several months, likely mostly on foot, for hundreds of miles.
28:00Right.
28:01Can you imagine?
28:02No.
28:02At 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.
28:21The 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?
28:53I 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.
29:08Mm-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, because 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 spoilation 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 it contains a detailed list of all that William owned.
30:00So 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.
30:11Uh-huh.
30:12In advance of the Trail of Tears, because he sees 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.
30:19I 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.
30:36I'm...
30:38My anger over the treatment of native peoples in our country isn't changed by this information.
30:49Though I do suppose 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.
31:00Uh-huh.
31:01Wrong is wrong whether you're related by blood, by heritage.
31:05Wrong is wrong.
31:07Wrong.
31:07Wrong.
31:08There was one more beat to this story.
31:12We uncovered an application for membership in the Cherokee Nation, filed by one of William's
31:19sons in the year 1906.
31:22It 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 tree.
31:37Wow.
31:38You now know the names of your Cherokee ancestors going back to your fifth-grade grandparents in a continuous line.
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...
31:58I 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, it 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.
34:41Oh, wait.
34:42But you had a patriot too, remember?
34:45Whew.
34:45We also had a slave.
34:46So we're, we're, I just feel so much better right now.
34:50Michael 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, to purchase land in Kansas, near
35:26what is now New Yorkshire.
35:28It must have been a grueling journey.
35:31And 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.
35:50A 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.
36:09Wow.
36:11Wow.
36:12And you never heard any stories about this?
36:14No.
36:15No, not anything about how they got there.
36:18Some of the names, the stoner last name I knew.
36:21But nothing else.
36:23What's it like to know that you come from these people?
36:25These people are tough.
36:26This tracks 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.
37:13And then April 30th, 1875, county court M.C. Stoner was appointed constable for Neodoshae Township.
37:20Mm-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.
37:47How 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.
38:12Wow.
38:12Isn't that amazing?
38:13That's really cool.
38:15You had no idea.
38:16None of these things are attractive.
38:19I know nothing of this.
38:20I'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.
38:42Henry is Sarah's 11th great-grandfather.
38:46He 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.
39:01You know who that is?
39:03He looks like a lot of people in my history book.
39:06That 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.
39:25Oh, my God.
39:28Oh, my God.
39:30I'm related to a president.
39:36And he was a good one.
39:37He was a good one.
39:39He was a good one.
39:42Oh, 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.
39:58These two presidents are not the only notable figures on the Adams line.
40:03Sarah is also related to the famed patriot Samuel Adams,
40:09signer 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
40:37able 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.
40:48It's important.
40:48But none of this.
40:49To 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.
40:59Because 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.
41:18Now 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, just months before shots were fired at Fort Sumter.
41:58Which 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?
42:07Not at all.
42:10Not given it any thought.
42:12Never heard anything about Civil War history in my family.
42:15Silas would have been about 38 years old at the time.
42:19What 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.
42:39Confederate.
42:40Company B, 10th Regiment, Texas.
42:43Silas H. Barber, Private.
42:45Aged 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.
43:02A 38-year-old private in the Confederacy sounds like a...
43:07It 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.
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.
44:31In May of 1863, he appears in the records of a Virginia hospital, where he was being treated for debilitas,
44:40a Latin term for enfeeblement, also 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.
45:03He was serious about the Confederacy.
45:07Silas, what were you thinking?
45:10Why would he do?
45:12I mean, it's so mystifying to me why he would want to fight at all, why he would want to
45:20fight for the Confederacy, why he'd want to fight at 38 years old, and certainly after being imprisoned and suffering
45:28from melancholy and debilitas and enfeeblement.
45:32I mean, why would you want to go back into battle?
45:35You had a strange ancestor.
45:37Yeah.
45:37He 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, we found what might be a clue.
45:52His father, Tracy's fourth great grandfather, was a man named Alan Barber.
45:58And the 1830 census shows that Alan had a vested interest in 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, was a man named James Barber.
46:28He died in 1842, and as Will mentions, that he owned two enslaved persons.
46:33So, did you ever think about having ancestors who may have enslaved human beings on your family tree?
46:39Well, have I thought about it?
46:42Sure.
46:43Sure.
46:44Coming as I do from Oklahoma and meaning the southern part of the United States.
46:50Mm-hmm.
46:50Would I have thought it possible?
46:52Sure.
46:53So, I'm disgusted.
46:55I'm not surprised.
46:57I'm like, eh, 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.
47:19A 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.
47:33In his day, Alexander was a renowned poet who chronicled the hopes of his people.
47:41I pledge you by the moon and sun, as long as stars their course shall run, long as day
47:48shall meet my view, peace shall reign between us two.
47:53I pledge you by those peaks of snow, as long as streams to ocean flow, long as years their
48:01youth renew, peace 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?
48:24My dad would like that.
48:26He would like that there's a poet in the family, and he'd like this a lot more than he'd like
48:30these bastard, these damn barbers.
48:34He'd like these posies a lot more than these barbers.
48:38Alexander is related to Tracy through his third great-grandmother, a woman named Sarah Posey.
48:45Digging deeper, we were able to identify Sarah's grandmother, Tracy's fifth great-grandmother,
48:52who was born on Muscogee tribal lands in the 1780s.
48:59Seeing yet another branch of his native roots laid out in such detail was 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, and he just had his first lesson in his first grade class about
49:23indigenous people.
49:24Oh, wow.
49:25And he came home, and he started telling us about the lessons that he had learned.
49:30And my wife said to him, you know, we think that you actually, you yourself,
49:40come from a family line that includes indigenous people.
49:45And he reacted strongly to that.
49:49I mean, there was a moment of, oh, really, man?
49:51Again, we love it when we can relate it to ourselves.
49:55Sure.
49:56So the fact that I can now take this to him and say, you, in fact, do.
50:01And here, not only do you, but here are their names.
50:04Your fifth-grade grandfather is 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 for each of my guests.
50:15It was time to show them their full family trees.
50:20Oh, my gosh.
50:21Whoa!
50:23Now filled with names they'd never heard before.
50:26For each, it was a moment of awe.
50:29Oh, my gosh.
50:30That's a lot.
50:33It's fantastic.
50:35This is the best gift I've ever been given.
50:37Offering the chance to see themselves in a new light.
50:43Look at all these people.
50:45Look at all this history.
50:47It's amazing.
50:47This 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 was running out.
51:02But I still had one surprise to share.
51:05When we compared Tracy's genetic profile to that of others who've been in the series,
51:10we found a match.
51:13Evidence of a distant cousin he never could have imagined he had.
51:19Okay.
51:20I'm nervous.
51:22Okay.
51:23You ready to meet your cousin?
51:25Sure.
51:26Please turn the page.
51:30Oh, that's fantastic.
51:37Tracy shares a long segment of DNA with actor Julia Roberts.
51:44They also share an experience.
51:47The two work together on the film version of August Osage County, Tracy's breakout hit.
51:55And I adore her.
51:57She's just great.
51:58We had such a great time.
52:00She's just such a lovely person.
52:03That's amazing.
52:04That's great.
52:06That's the end of our journey with Tracy Letts and Sarah Haynes.
52:11Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of Finding
52:19Your Roots.
52:20Thank you for watching this once!
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