KPVI News (Pocatello, Idaho) recently posted a news story about the PBS series, Finding Your Roots, which is hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

Nominated for an Emmy in the 'Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special' category, the show begins its 11th season on Tuesday, January 7, 2025.

KPVI's article, excerpted below, certainly answered a couple questions I’ve asked myself:

How long does it take to research a guest’s ancestry?
Find Your Root’s researchers spend an average of 200 to 300 hours looking into the genealogy of each guest, and sometimes more, as the late Johni Cerny, the show’s chief genealogist from 2012 to 2019, explained to Family Tree Magazine in 2013.

And though the researchers sometimes feel they’re getting nowhere, they “[eventually] find something interesting for just about everyone, but only after adding hours of intensive research into obscure records,” Cerny added. "We could probably do a great series on the unsolved genealogy mysteries of our former guests."

Does the research ever turn up revelations too personal to air?
The Finding Your Roots team told Family Tree in 2020 that their research has uncovered family secrets they deemed too sensitive for broadcast. In one case, for example, they learned a guest’s dad was not his biological father.

“We stopped production,” genealogist Nick Sheedy recalled. “Dr. Gates called the guest directly to break the news. This was life-changing to our guest and his family. We’re looking for great stories to tell on TV, but we are sensitive to the significant impact this could have. We would not blindside a guest with a revelation like this. We’re not Jerry Springer.”

Celebrity guests for Season 11 include Joy Behar, Kristen Bell, Laurence Fishburne, Debra Messing, Melanie Lynskey, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Amanda Seyfried, Dax Shepard, Sharon Stone, Chrissy Teigen, and even host Dr. Gates himself.

You can read the full KPVI news story here.