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ho volunght could freedom. Before the Civil War, there was no record of Betts, possibly because the census did not include slaves.
After the war, he appeared in one government count as a farmer.
Before marrying Prince Harry, 34, last May, the Duchess spoke openly about the struggles she faced being raised in a mixed-race family, while also opening up about her desire to discover who her ancestors were.
Meghan has detailed witnessing how her mother, Doria Ragland, 62, was called the N-word and how, at 13, she refused to fill out a mandatory school census as it failed to provide a box for her ethnicity.
She said: “When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened.
“He said the words that have always stayed with me – ‘If that happens again, you draw your own box’.”
She then added: “Perhaps the closest thing to connecting me to my ever-complex family tree, my longing to know where I come from, and the commonality that links me to my bloodline, is the choice that my great-great-great-grandfather made to start anew.
“He chose the last name Wisdom. He drew his own box.”
Finding Your Roots is presented by an eminent Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates Jnr, who holds 53 honorary degrees as well as numerous academic and social action awards.
The 68-year-old self-confessed Anglophile, who is close friends with Barack Obama and is credited as being one of the world’s leading experts in black history, was the first African-American to receive an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship to study at the University of Cambridge.
Previously, Finding Yours Roots has delved into the ancestors of Sting, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Carly Simon and Stephen King.
The show once caused controversy when it emerged that actor Ben Affleck had persuaded Professor Gates to omit information about his slave-owning ancestors. ELVIS Presley fan Tommy Holland quit his mechanic job to become a tribute act in a handmade suit shipped from the US to Bolton.