On May 8, moments after the world learned that an American cardinal named Robert Francis Prevost was becoming Pope Leo XIV, my inbox was flooded with emails. For the past 13 years, I’ve hosted a PBS show called “Finding Your Roots,” where, with the help of a team of genealogists, we trace the family history of prominent figures, often turning up fascinating details about their ancestors that they didn’t know they had. As soon as Prevost became one of the most eminent people in the world, fans of the show wanted to know what mysteries lay in his family’s past.
They didn’t have to wait long. Hours later, news broke: The New York Times, drawing on research by Jari C. Honora, a genealogist, revealed that Pope Leo had recent African American ancestors. Prevost’s maternal grandparents, residents of the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, were described in records as “mulatto” and “black.” This was earthshaking news, but we knew it was only the beginning.

Every one of us descends from an astounding number of recent ancestors: two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 third great grandparents and 64 fourth great grandparents — that’s 126 unique ancestors through two parents. Go back to our 12th great grandparents, and everyone has a whopping 32,766 forebears.
The initial finding about the pope’s Black ancestry looked back three generations. In collaboration with the genealogists at American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, we were able to identify more than 100 people going back 15 generations and discovered a wealth of fascinating stories. We all agreed that, after more than a decade of doing this kind of genealogical work, the pope’s roots make for one of the most diverse family trees we have ever created.