Latest news with #DetroitPBS
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard find out fascinating details on PBS series 'Finding Your Roots'
Two of metro Detroit's homegrown celebrities, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, are famous for their Michigan ties. Now the married actors will be learning a lot about their family histories that stretch way beyond the Wolverine State. Bell, who grew up in Huntington Woods, and Shepard, who was raised in Milford and went to high school in Walled Lake, will hear some fascinating stories about their ancestries at 8 p.m. Tuesday on the latest episode of "Finding Your Roots," the popular PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. "Finding Your Roots" airs in southeast Michigan on Detroit PBS. Bell and Shepard will get the scoop on many generations of their family tree from Gates, the Harvard professor and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who has been revealing details of long-ago relatives to famous figures since the genealogical research series launched in 2012. In a clip posted at the show's PBS website, Gates is shown telling Shepard about his ninth great grandfather, Toussaint Beaudry, who emigrated at age 25 from France to Canada in 1664. After working as a domestic servant at a Montreal hospital, Beaudry became a fur trader. Another clip has Gates sharing information with Bell on the death of her grandfather's 5-year-old brother, who was killed in a car accident in front of his home, and the disappearance afterward of her great-grandfather, Frank Frygier, who abandoned his family after the tragedy. Although Bell and her relatives never knew where Frank Frygier went, Gates reveals where he lived out the rest of his days and how he already had experienced much loss before leaving Poland to sail to Ellis Island in 1910. Asked by Gates what this great-grandfather would have thought about her achievements, Bell says: "Well, I would hope that he would be able to see that the generations trauma has waned a little bit and that, unfortunately, he got the short end of the stick, having to go through all of it. But it yielded some some really happy results with me and my life and my kids." Says Bell, "I hope he'd be happy to know that we're happy now." Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@ Guests Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard 8 p.m. Tuesday Detroit PBS (Channel 56) This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard learn about their ancestry on 'Finding Your Roots'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Detroit PBS, Michigan Central Station team up for events tied to docuseries 'Great Migrations'
To mark the new docuseries 'Great Migrations: A People on the Move,' Detroit PBS is partnering with Michigan Central Station to welcome metro Detroiters to two weekend-long events. The weekends will feature screenings of the series, food from Black-owned eateries, live music by artists from Detroit and a chance to participate in the Destination Detroit initiative, which makes video recordings of people talking about their own personal histories and sharing the details of how their families migrated to the Motor City in search of a new home. 'Great Migrations: A People on the Move' which has been airing at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Detroit PBS (Channel 56), tells the story of the Black population migrations of the 20th and 21st centuries while exploring the meaning behind them and explaining their impact on America's journey as a nation. The four-part docuseries is written, hosted and executive-produced by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard University professor, literary scholar and cultural critic who has been involved with many PBS series on the Black experience, including 'Gospel,' 'The Black Church,' 'Making Black America' and more. Footage for the series was filmed at Michigan Central Station, one of the historic hubs of the migration. The weekend activities kicked off last weekend to 'an overwhelmingly positive response," according to Detroit PBS. The Detroit PBS One Detroit team that is working on the Destination Detroit initiative was able to interview 24 people, whose recollections of their relatives moving to Detroit spanned locations from the Deep South and Somalia to Germany, Mexico, Laos and more. Detroit PBS says it plans to share the recordings with the public in a Destination Detroit Oral History Archive. The weekend events at Michigan Central event are free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this weekend on Saturday and Sunday and next weekend on Feb. 22 (which will last an extra hour until 3 p.m.) and Feb. 23. A panel discussion Feb. 22 will led by 'American Black Journal' host and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Henderson, who will join guests including Jamon Jordan, Detroit's official city historian, and Neil Barclay, president and CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. If you're planning to attend, you need to register in advance online at For more information, go to To watch the 'Great Migrations' series, go here. Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: PBS docuseries inspires free weekend events at Michigan Central Station
