LeVar Burton shocked to discover he's descended from a Confederate soldier

quote:

---

Actor LeVar Burton was in disbelief after learning he descended from a White Confederate soldier on Tuesday's episode of "Finding Your Roots."

The PBS documentary show uses written ancestries and DNA research to discover the long-lost family histories of prominent guests.

Show host and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed to Burton that his family had harbored a deep secret for generations. The man he thought was his great-great-grandfather was not actually genetically matched to him. His great-grandmother, Mary Sills, was actually descended from a White man named James Henry Dixon.

"Were you expecting that? Did you have any idea you had a White, direct ancestor?" host Gates asked Burton.

Burton was in disbelief at this discovery. "No! No, I had no idea. So Granny was half-White! Wow," he reacted.

Further research into Burton's lineage revealed even more surprising discoveries. His ancestor was born in North Carolina in 1847 and served in the reserve troops in the Confederate army as a teenager. Later on, he fathered a child with an African-American woman born into slavery.

Burton, who famously portrayed a slave in the 1977 TV miniseries, "Roots," was floored to find out his great-great grandfather fought to protect the institution of slavery during America's Civil War.

---