Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. will guide an all-new group - poet Maya Angelou, actor Morgan Freeman, theologian Peter Gomes, publisher Linda Johnson Rice, athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, radio host Tom Joyner, and rock 'n' roll legend Tina Turner - on a journey to discover their ancestry. The new four-part series draws on DNA analysis, genealogical research, and family oral tradition to trace the lineages of the participants down through U.S. history and back to Africa.

Episode One, The Road Home, will focus on participants' ancestors in the early 20th century. Stories include the tragic account of Tom Joyner's great-uncles, who in 1915 were convicted by an all-white jury and executed in the electric chair for a crime that new evidence suggests they did not commit; and Bliss Broyard, who lived her life unaware that her father, renowned New York Times critic Anatole Broyard, was a light-skinned black man who chose to "pass" as white. She only learned of her African-American roots upon her father's death in 1990.

Episode Two, A Way Out of No Way, will continue tracing the guests' lineages back through the late 1800s to the Civil War, featuring such stories as Chris Rock's maternal great-great grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, a black Civil War veteran who was twice elected to the South Carolina State Legislature; and Don Cheadle's ancestors, who had been enslaved by Chickasaw Indians and brought to Oklahoma on the tail end of the "trail of tears," the forced relocation of Native Americans during the 1830s.

Episode Three, We Come from People, reveals stories of participants' ancestors during the early years of the United States, such as a riveting account of life in slavery by Morgan Freeman's great-grandmother, discovered within the records of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, and Peter Gomes's ancestors, who were freed and supported by Quaker families in Virginia in the late 1700s.

DNA analysis leads to fascinating discoveries about participants' lineages in Episode Four, The Past Is Another Country. A groundbreaking study links Professor Gates to a powerful ancient Irish warlord, while evidence suggests Peter Gomes's direct paternal line traces back to a Portuguese Jew who fled the country in the early 1500s to escape the Inquisition.

Wednesdays, 2/6-13/08 from 9-11 p.m. ET
Sundays, 2/10-17/08 from 4-6 a.m. ET