Faces of America is a four-part Public Broadcasting Service

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 (PBS) Public television television series hosted by Professor Henry Louis Gates. The series originally aired February 10 – March 3, 2010 from 8–9 p.m. ET. In Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, this program aired on SBS One each Sunday at 7:30pm from 9 -30 January 2011. It uses genealogical research and genetics to find the family history of 12 Americans: Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander (poet)

Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, essayist, playwright, and a university professor.-Early life:Alexander was born in Harlem, New York City and grew up in Washington D.C. She is the daughter of former United States Secretary of the Army and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairman...

, Mario Batali

Mario Batali

Mario Batali is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,...

, Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...

, Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich

Karen Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...

, Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...

, Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria

Eva Jacqueline Longoria is an American actress, best known for portraying Gabrielle Solis on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives...

, Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...

, Queen Noor of Jordan, Dr. Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Cengiz Oz , also known as Dr. Oz, is a Turkish-American cardiothoracic surgeon, author, talk show host, and commentator for The Dr. Oz Show, a daily television program focusing on medical issues/personal health....

, Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, and Kristi Yamaguchi

Kristi Yamaguchi

Kristine Tsuya "Kristi" Yamaguchi-Hedican is an American figure skater. She is the 1992 Olympic Champion in ladies' singles. Yamaguchi also won two World Figure Skating Championships in 1991 and 1992 and a U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1992. She won one junior world title in 1988 and two...

.

In the series finale, Gates explored the emerging use of full genome sequencing

Full genome sequencing

Full genome sequencing , also known as whole genome sequencing , complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is a laboratory process that determines the complete DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a single time...

 to understand personal ancestry and health, by learning what might be inferred from his whole genome sequence, and that of his father, through in-depth analysis by a personal genomics company (Knome

Knome

Knome is an American personal genomics company that sells human whole genome and exome analysis and sequencing services to researchers and consumers...

) and the Broad Institute

Broad Institute

The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...

.

See also

• Ancestors in the Attic
  Ancestors in the Attic
  Ancestors in the Attic is a Canadian television program about genealogy presented by Reader’s Digest Canada and shown on History Television in Canada. It is hosted by Jeff Douglas with professional genealogist Paul J. McGrath until his death on 23 October 2008 while filming in Edinburgh, Scotland...
  
  
• Who Do You Think You Are?
  Who Do You Think You Are? (U.S. TV series)
  Who Do You Think You Are? is an American genealogy documentary series that premiered on NBC on March 5, 2010. The show is an adaptation of the British series of the same name, aired by the BBC. Each week a celebrity goes on a journey to trace his or her family tree. Lisa Kudrow is executive...
  
  

External links

• http://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/arts/television/10faces.html