*Wow. Wanda Sykes family history made history.
(Are you a fan of EURweb? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.)
The comedian and actress was professionally researched for a segment of “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” and the pros discovered that she has the longest recorded history the franchise has ever uncovered.
Gates and his team of researchers found that her paternal ninth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Banks was a white woman who was punished with “thirty-nine lashes” for “fornication and bastardy with a negro slave” as is written on a June 20, 1683 court document from York County, Va.
Among the other celebrities to be featured on “Finding Your Roots” are Barbara Walters (who learns her original family surname), Harry Connick Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Margaret Cho, Kevin Bacon, Rep. John Lewis (of Georgia), Branford Marsalis, Robert Downey Jr. and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The Wanda Sykes episode will air in May.
Read/learn more at NY Times.
Interesting what one can learn about their family tree. I look forward to this journey this year.
I’d love it too, problem is too many folks are dead and when they were alive they wouldn’t tell us shit!! And then wonder our asses are SOO confused. I’ll tell my kids as much as I know/remember . I/we/they deserve to know.