Roots Less Traveled

Siblings Michelle and Rob to Mexico City, where they discover their relation to a famous Mexican political family and learn that their second cousin Ernesto gave the keys to Mexico City to President John F. Kennedy.

Grandpa and grandson Evan and Scott travel to Montana to learn that Evan's great-grandfather was an integral part of the 1862 U.S. western states expansion and that two of his uncles were prisoners of war in WWII and both received Purple Hearts.

Mom and son duo Sharee and Davone travel to Nashville, Tennessee, where they learn that their fourth great-grandfather Larkin Ford was a part of an 1840s landmark Tennessee case in which he was awarded the farm that he worked on as a slave.

Aunt and nephew Tammy and Julian go on an adventure in Brooklyn to learn their relation to undertaker John Baisley, who helped bury the city's dead in the 1856 epidemic, and to James Howell, who was an integral part in building the Brooklyn Bridge.

Uncle and nephew Al and Jr. travel to Havana, Cuba, to learn Al's grandfather, Joseph Barlow, owned and developed 34 blocks of downtown Havana, including the now-famous suburban neighborhood Buena Vista, but lost his riches in a political coup.

Father and daughter Paul and Kalina visit a Civil War battleground in Virginia to discover Paul's great-grandfather Austin D. Springer was a Union Army drummer boy who was taken prisoner by the Confederate Army but escaped and hid in slave huts.

Siblings Ashley and Elliott visit Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and discover one ancestor, Henry Osborn, was taken prisoner on a boat in the Revolutionary War and another, Samuel Osborn, went from debtor's prison to owning a whaling ship fleet.

Host Faruq Tauheed looks back at memorable moments, including a relative who gave John F. Kennedy the keys to Mexico City, a connection to downtown Havana, Cuba, and an African American ancestor who owned land in Tennessee before the Civil War.