Oprah’s Liberian heritage could inspire nation’s residents, an interesting article by Jeremy Levitt in the Chicago Sun-Times, delves into just what impact the recent PBS Documentary “African American Lives”, which covered the genealogy of several prominent African-Americans, will have on Liberia and Liberian genealogy research as a whole. Although it covers mostly the Liberian aspect, it’s still kind of an interesting read (and they bring up some of the problems with DNA genealogy research).
Excerpt from the article:
According to the brilliant PBS documentary ”African American Lives” hosted by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., Winfrey — one of the richest, most influential and most popular people in the world — originally descends from Liberia, one of the poorest and most war-torn countries on Earth. She purportedly originates from the Kpelle ethnic group, one of 16 of Liberia’s major ethno-linguistic groups……
The four-hour multipart series investigates and reconstructs African-American history through genealogy and DNA testing. The show’s subjects included several other black notables, including Quincy Jones, Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Tucker.