GATES: I'm Henry Louis Gates Jr., welcome to "Finding Your Roots."

In this episode, we'll meet Debra Messing and Melanie Lynskey, two actors struggling to make sense of their family trees.

MESSING: I've always been really curious.

No one could agree on where certain people were from, and that always seemed very odd to me.

LYNSKEY: I mean, there's always been this huge gap in my history.

GATES: To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.

Genealogists, combed through paper trails, stretching back hundreds of years.

LYNSKEY: How did you even find this?

GATES: While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.

MESSING: Wow, all the dirt's coming out now.

GATES: And we've compiled it all into a "Book of Life," a record of all of our discoveries.

MESSING: What, what?

GATES: And a window into the hidden past.

LYNSKEY: Oh my gosh, that's so amazing.

MESSING: Hyman was a Rabbi?

GATES: Hyman was a Rabbi.

Did you have any idea he taught the Torah?

MESSING: Are you kidding?

LYNSKEY: I had hopes, but they were like such hidden hopes because I just, it just seemed impossible.

MESSING: This has just been the greatest gift, I mean, you, you gave me, me.

GATES: Debra and Melanie both descend from ancestors who took chances that most people would never dream of taking.

In this episode, we'll meet those ancestors and see how their radical decisions forever reshaped their family trees.

(theme music playing).

♪ ♪ (book closes).

♪ ♪ (camera shuttering) GATES: Debra Messing has a very simple secret to success, she loves what she does.

The Emmy Award-winning actor, star of the beloved sitcom, "Will and Grace" has been in the limelight for three decades and is still driven by a passion for her work.

It's a passion that was ignited in an instant on a childhood trip from her hometown in Rhode Island to see a show on Broadway.

MESSING: Well, my parents constantly drove down to New York from Rhode Island because we had family in Brooklyn.

Uh, and every time we would go down, we would see a play and I distinctly remember, I think I, they said I was seven, we went to see "Annie" and we were fifth row center, and apparently as soon as the kids, all the girls were there singing, "It's A Hard Knock Life," I like levitated out of my chair, and I turned to my mom and I said, "Kids can do that?

Kids can do that?

I wanna do that!

I want, I wanna be up there."

And my mother's like, "Okay, dear, okay, dear."

(laughter).

GATES: Since that moment, Debra has never wavered from her goal.

She began auditioning for school plays as soon as she could, and she told me that growing up, she felt happiest and most at home on the stage.

But even so, Debra was never completely at home in Rhode Island, and that took a profound toll.

MESSING: I was only one of three Jews in my community.

GATES: Hmm.

MESSING: So I definitely felt like an "other."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: I definitely knew that I was different.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: And, um, you know, we had a swastika painted on my grandfather's car.

GATES: Mm.

MESSING: When I was young after Halloween, we had, you know, these big, big globe lights at the end of our driveway, and they were constantly destroyed with a bat over and over and over and over and over again.

GATES: Mm.

MESSING: Um, and there was really no one else around who I could talk to about it.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Uh, so I, I, I think that I, I, I never let anyone really, really in... GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: When I was growing up.

GATES: Mm-hmm, I understand that.

MESSING: Yeah.

GATES: Debra's sense of otherness would linger far longer than she ever imagined possible.

After majoring in theater at college and earning a graduate degree at NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, she landed in Hollywood confronting the very same stereotypes she thought she'd escaped long ago.

MESSING: I was, I was told in my first film that I did that my nose was ruining the movie, by the director, he screamed it, it was my first scene ever in a movie.

GATES: No... MESSING: With Keanu Reeves.

GATES: Huh.

MESSING: And I was playing his wife, and the first scene was us coming together, profile to profile to kiss, and I walked into the frame, and he said, "Cut, how quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here?

She's ruin, her nose is ruining my movie."

GATES: Oh my God, that's terrible.

MESSING: And he just sat back, and he just was like, "Ugh."

GATES: What did you do?

MESSING: And everybody, well, the crew all laughed first and then they realized he was serious.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: And he said, uh, "Bella, you have to do me a favor, your character is supposed to be very, very beautiful, don't ever show your profile in the entire movie, okay?"

And I just said, "Okay."

And he left and I, I have no memory of finishing it, I mean, I know I did.

GATES: That's horrible.

MESSING: It, it was absolutely mortifying.

GATES: Right.

MESSING: You know, I mean, I came back and I, and I, I said, okay, let's just, I'm just built for theater, anyone could be beautiful in the theater, there's enough distance, you know?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: And costumes, and I was like, I, that's where I'm supposed to be.

And then, um, and then I got my first TV show.

GATES: Right.

MESSING: And, uh, and she was Jewish.

And so I, I looked appropriate according to those people.

GATES: My second guest is actor Melanie Lynskey, fame for her star turns on "Togetherness," "Yellowjackets," and "The Last of Us."

Like Debra, Melanie, found her calling as a child, but under vastly different circumstances.

When she was six years old, her family moved from her native New Zealand to spend a year in London.

And Melanie felt utterly lost.

LYNSKEY: I was very shy.

I was away from my grandmother, who was my anchor and my support person, this bracelet she put on my hand when I was a baby, and I've never taken it off.

GATES: Wow.

LYNSKEY: And she was, you know, my everything, so being away from my nana living in a strange place, I felt very like unmoored, and for some reason, I tried out for a play, and the moment I got on stage, and I could be in somebody else's body is what it felt like.

Someone gave me lines to say, and suddenly I wasn't standing in front of a group of strange kids trying to not sound like the biggest dork in the room.

I was just suddenly like, oh, here's what I'm doing in this moment, and I felt confident and free of myself, and it became addictive.

GATES: This realization sent Melanie on the path she's still following today, but the journey was not a smooth one.

After some early success in New Zealand and a brief stint at college, Melanie moved to Los Angeles to find work and instead found herself struggling.

LYNSKEY: I was nervous, I was, um, self-conscious.

All I thought about was like, what my tummy looked like, what my face looked like.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

LYNSKEY: It was emotionally very challenging.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

I wasn't a, um, super robust person.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

LYNSKEY: And I just felt different from a lot of the young actresses I was seeing and lonely, and, you know, it was, it was hard, and it took a while for things to really get going.

GATES: Did you ever think "It's not gonna work out?"

Or did you say, "I'm gonna give myself x amount of time and if I don't have a role back home to New Zealand?"

LYNSKEY: I think I trusted my internal voice that I would know when it was embarrassing.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

I guess or that I would know when it was too much for me.

Because still, even though it was like challenging and hard, there were moments where I was like, look at my life, you know, I would go to audition at Warner Brothers and just being on a movie lot.

GATES: Yeah.

LYNSKEY: It was crazy, coming from New Plymouth, New Zealand, I just, I would be like, this is magic.

GATES: I still think going to a movie set's magic.

LYNSKEY: I do too.

BOTH: Yeah.

GATES: You know, you go, "Wow."

LYNSKEY: I know, I know, you just can't quite believe that you're there.

GATES: Eventually, Melanie would find a way to fit into Hollywood.

After a decade of small parts, her career took off when she began to earn larger, more complicated roles, embodying a range of characters who are capable of anything, even murder.

LYNSKEY: Here, have I satisfied the necessary conditions for you to talk?

GATES: It's a change that Melanie has thoroughly enjoyed.

LYNSKEY: I like to subvert people's expectations of what a woman is supposed to be.

Um, I think especially middle-aged women are just kind of dismissed a lot by society, and so it's really fun to play these people who someone would just let a door close on, because this has happened to me in my life.

Um, but are actually people who could literally kill you.

Like, it's really fun.

GATES: My two guests have both pursued their dreams, even when it seemed that the world did not always want them to.

And both have made choices that defied the odds.

Now it was time to introduce them to ancestors who had done the same thing.

I started with Debra Messing and with her paternal grandparents, Millie and Morris messing.

Debra knew them both, and they left a deep impression, in part because of their very different personalities.

MESSING: My grandmother, she sang all the time.

She danced all the time.

It didn't matter where we were.

She loved the attention.

GATES: Do you think she had anything to do with your desire to be on stage?

MESSING: I'm sure, I'm, I'm sure that when I was, you know, tiny and I was singing and dancing, I'm sure that, you know, she got a kick outta that and was like, "This is our family, this is what we do."

GATES: That's right.

MESSING: "Of course you have it in your blood" and... GATES: You're gonna be like, grandmama.

MESSING: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm sure of it.

Um, and, and Morris, uh, Papa Morris was just very straight laced.

GATES: Huh?

Did they talk much about their roots?

MESSING: Never.

GATES: Mm.

MESSING: Mm-mm, no, and I, and I've asked my father many times.

GATES: Well, let's see what we found.

MESSING: Okay.

GATES: We're gonna go back 87 years, can you please turn the page?

MESSING: 87 years.

Certificate and record of marriage groom Morris Messing, age 22.

Birthplace, Poland.

Father's name Hyam.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Mother's maiden name, Esther Mittledorf.

Bride, Millie Rottblatt.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Bride's age 21.

Birthplace, London, England.

Father's name Isaac.

Mother's maiden name, Rebecca Leiter.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: The above named groom and bride were joined in marriage in accordance with the laws of the state of New York at 62 Pitt Street, borough of Manhattan, City of New York, the 30th of May, 1936.

GATES: That is your grandparents married certificate.

Have you ever seen that before?

MESSING: I have not.

GATES: What's it like to see it?

MESSING: It's pretty great.

GATES: And it's full of information.

MESSING: It sure is.

GATES: This record indicates that Morris and Millie were married in Manhattan in May of 1936, and it provides the names of their parents, Debra's great-grandparents.

It also reveals that Morris was from Poland.

Trying to learn more, we turned to Morris's naturalization papers, filed seven months after his wedding.

They reveal his birthplace, which would prove a tongue twister, both for Debra and for me.

MESSING: "I was born in..." GATES: Przeclaw, Przec... You can do it, you can do it.

MESSING: Przeclaw.

GATES: That's right.

MESSING: "Poland on September 5th, 1913.

My race is Hebrew."

GATES: "My race is Hebrew," isn't that interesting?

MESSING: It's very interesting.

GATES: Yeah.

MESSING: "I immigrated to the United States of America on December 1st, 1923 on the vessel..." GATES: Minnekahda.

MESSING: Minnekahda.

GATES: This is your grandfather's petition to become a citizen of the United States.

Have you ever heard of Przeclaw?

MESSING: Um, I think my father had mentioned it at one point, I remember him saying the word and me saying, "What?"

GATES: Yeah.

Przeclaw is a small town in Southeast Poland.

Its Jewish population dates back to the 16th century, but sometime in the early 1900s, the Messings decided to leave the past behind, likely in search of opportunities that they could not find at home.

The move would demand enormous sacrifices, Morris's older sister Golda came first leaving for New York in 1913.

His brother Bernard followed seven years later.

And finally, Morris and his parents, Hyam and Esther, as well as two more siblings, arrived in 1923, reuniting a family that had been apart for a decade.

MESSING: Wow, that must have been just incredibly emotional.

GATES: Mm.

MESSING: I, I, the hardship of being separated for 10 years.

GATES: A 10 year period anything could happen, you know?

Have you heard any family stories about their first few years in New York, fresh off the boat, so to speak?

MESSING: No, no.

GATES: Please turn the page.

Debra, on the right there is the 1925 state census for New York, would you please read that transcribed section?

MESSING: Residence, 52 Pitt Street.

City, New York.

Hyam Messing, head of household age 50.

Occupation, fruit market.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Own account.

Esther wife, age 47.

Occupation, housewife.

Bernard, son, age 20.

Occupation, high school.

Samuel, son, age 18.

Occupation, high school.

Morris, son, age 12.

Occupation, school.

Wow.

GATES: So that's your grandfather Morris, his parents and siblings, just two years after arriving in America.

And at the time, they all lived at 52 Pitt Street, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

MESSING: So a one room apartment probably.

GATES: Yeah, you can see the building right there.

MESSING: Wow.

Oh my gosh.

GATES: What's it like to see that these are your people starting their lives afresh in America almost 100 years ago?

MESSING: I, it's, um, it's really moving.

I mean, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're leaving everything that they've ever known and going to a new country.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Just with no guarantees of anything.

GATES: Mm-mm.

MESSING: Except just hope.

GATES: The Messing's hope would be rewarded.

By 1925, Debra's great-grandfather Hyam was living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and supporting his family by working at a fruit market.

At the time, the neighborhood was the epicenter of Jewish life in New York City home to almost 300,000 Jewish people.

And we found something that suggests Hyam was an integral part of his new community.

MESSING: Wow, wow.

GATES: Debra, you're looking at your great-grandfather's headstone at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.

Would you please read what we've translated for you?

MESSING: "Here lies a man upright and honest, departed in full vitality in the way of the righteous.

Our teacher, Rabbi Hyam, son of Mr. Yael passed with a good name."

"Our teacher Rabbi Hyam..." Hyam was a rabbi?

GATES: Hyam was a rabbi.

MESSING: What, what?

GATES: Did you have any idea he taught the Torah?

MESSING: Are you kidding?

GATES: Yep, he was an actual rabbi, and you had no idea?

MESSING: No.

GATES: That you descend from a rabbi?

MESSING: No.

This is the same guy that was the fruit vendor, right?

GATES: Yes, that's right.

MESSING: So he was... GATES: Well, you know, man's gotta make a living... MESSING: ...a fruit vendor and a rabbi.

Wow.

GATES: We don't know anything more about Hyam's work as a rabbi, but the fact that it's mentioned on his tombstone suggests that it was important to him and that may have influenced the crucial decision made by his wife Esther.

When Hyam died, Esther had only been in America for six years, and may well have been tempted to return to Poland, but she chose to remain in the new home that she and her husband had built for themselves.

MESSING: Wow.

"Here lies our esteemed mother.

Performing acts of charity and kindness all the days of her life.

Esther daughter of Mr.

Baruch."

GATES: Hmm, Esther outlived Hyam by 36 years.

MESSING: Wow.

GATES: She died at the age of 91.

MESSING: Wow, okay.

GATES: In 1966 in New York City, two years before you were born, and she was buried at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont the same place as Hyam is.

MESSING: Oh my goodness.

GATES: Are you gonna visit?

MESSING: Yeah, now that I, now that I know.

GATES: We had one more detail to share with Debra about her great-grandmother.

As we comb through the archives in Poland, we noticed something surprising.

Esther was the co-owner of a small property in her hometown, and this discovery allowed us to show Debra something that very few Jewish Americans can ever see.

Guess what you're looking at?

MESSING: Is this the property now?

GATES: That's your great grandmother Esther's property today.

MESSING: No way.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay this one says, uh, mucha auto, so is this like an autobody shop?

GATES: Well, there's several stores, but all we know is that a pizzeria is there.

MESSING: I see the pizza over here.

GATES: Oh yeah?

And several stores.

MESSING: Well, I love pizza.

GATES: Yeah, me too.

Polish Pizza, the best!

We don't know who currently owns it, all we know is that a pizzeria and several stores now stand on your family's land, what's it like to look at that?

MESSING: Oh my gosh.

I have chills, I have chills.

I never imagined I would be able to see anything, anything that, that would give me any sort of visual about the family, all, you know, way back when.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: It's really, it's really marvelous.

GATES: Like Debra, Melanie Lynskey was about to see a part of her family's history that she had long dreamed of seeing.

But this journey begins much closer to home.

Melanie's maternal grandfather, a man named John Mahoney, was placed in an orphanage soon after his birth and spent his entire life trying to learn about his biological parents.

Melanie was hoping that we could find the answers that had eluded him.

We started with one of the many letters that John had written during his long search.

LYNSKEY: "Dear Mrs. Corcoran, A social worker from the New Zealand Children and Young Person Service, Naomi Baker has suggested I write to you in relation to some gaps in my earlier life."

Ah.

"I make contact with you as what would appear to be a last resort and my quest."

Sorry, I knew this was gonna happen when we got to my granddad.

"I'm now 69 years of age, was born in Masterton in 1926, was baptized at St. Joseph's Church at Upper Heart in 1927, and in, and according to St. Joseph's Con," oh, sorry, "and according to St. Joseph's convent records, I arrived there as a 5-year-old in 1932.

The orphanage was destroyed by fire in 1946.

I also wrote to the solicitors of the people who adopted me, whose information was most negative, and who said if there was any confidential stuff on there, they would not be able to supply it.

The district court in Wellington has not replied to my representations.

So you see, I may be forgiven and thinking some sort of Iron Curtain has descended and nobody has any record of me."

Ah.

GATES: What's it like to read that?

LYNSKEY: It breaks my heart.

GATES: Mm.

LYNSKEY: I know it was like a huge, huge thing for him to not know who he was even.

GATES: Thanks to his dogged efforts, Melanie's grandfather did eventually obtain his own birth certificate, and it contained a precious piece of information.

The name of his biological mother, Jessie Helen Whyte, and this led him to another discovery.

This is a letter dated March 9th, 1996, which your grandfather received from a woman named Yvonne Burrow.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

LYNSKEY: "Dear Mr. Mahoney, I do apologize for taking so long to answer your letter of inquiries about your birth mother.

Jessie was private secretary to my father, Stafford Wellington Ripley," that's quite the name, "who was one of the partners in a very old, established legal firm.

She was with him for many years right up until she died.

It came as a terrible loss and shock to him, he always referred to her as his first lieutenant, and she was a splendid secretary and grew to know the law as well as he did.

I remember her as a tall, well-built woman, held herself very well.

And I think a very seriously minded person who never laughed much, but had numerous friends and enjoyed going to the theater and was a woman of great integrity.

You could be proud of her.

She visited a brother who lived in Whanganui quite often and was fond of his children.

She was a splendid secretary and a very proud and nice woman, a mother you could be proud of.

Yours sincerely, Yvonne Burrow."

GATES: What do you think your grandfather felt when he read that?

LYNSKEY: Oh, I think it would be complicated, I just, that she was so nearby, and I think the thing about she visited a brother, I mean, Whanganui is so close to New Plymouth.

GATES: Mm.

LYNSKEY: It's an hour and a half.

So visiting her brother in Whanganui and being fond of his children.

GATES: The children, yeah.

LYNSKEY: It's so heartbreaking.

GATES: This was, as far as John search had taken him, he died knowing his mother's name and a few details about her life, but nothing more.

We tried to go further.

Our researchers constructed a family tree for John, but one prominent box remained empty.

We could not find a single document naming his father.

Luckily we had another tool, DNA, when we compared Melanie's mother's genetic profile to millions of other profiles in publicly available databases, we were able to identify three very strong matches.

And each of them appeared to be related to Melanie's mother through one of her father's parents.

Our experts then began to build out the family trees of those matches and found that they all descend from one man.

LYNSKEY: Mmm.

GATES: The same man, a man whom we believe to be your grandfather's biological father.

On the next page.

LYNSKEY: Oh my heart.

GATES: On the next page... LYNSKEY: Mm.

GATES: ...we're gonna see the same family tree, only this time we will have added in the name of the man we believe to be your biological great-grandfather.

Are you ready?

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: Please turn the page.

LYNSKEY: Oh my goodness, Archibald Allan.

GATES: Archibald Allan.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: Have you ever heard that name before?

LYNSKEY: No.

GATES: Unfortunately this is where things got complicated.

When we tried to learn about this man named Archibald Allan, we came up empty.

We couldn't find a single record of his life anywhere, it was as if he didn't exist other than in DNA databases.

But then we noticed something intriguing, a wedding announcement for someone with a very similar name.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: Well, it's not an exact match, but in 1915, a man named Archibald Allan Sharpe married a woman named Susannah or Connie Brett, in the same city where your great-grandmother Jessie, was living when your grandfather was conceived roughly 10 years later.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: So what do you think?

LYNSKEY: I mean, is it him?

It seems like Arch, how many people are called Archibald?

(laughter).

GATES: Archibald wasn't the most common name even at the time.

But still, similarities in names can be coincidental.

We needed more evidence, and as we looked at the records that Archibald Sharpe left behind, we found it.

LYNSKEY: Oh my God.

GATES: Please turn the page.

LYNSKEY: This is so exciting, this is so exciting.

GATES: You're looking at the death record for Archibald Sharpe.

The man we just saw getting married.

He died in Australia in 1966.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

LYNSKEY: Oh, "Christian name and surname of deceased Archibald Sharpe, known as Archibald Allan."

GATES: So you know what this means?

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: Archibald Allan and Archibald Allan Sharpe are one and the same person.

LYNSKEY: That is absolutely amazing.

That is so amazing.

GATES: Your great-grandfather was using an alias.

LYNSKEY: Dodgy.

GATES: What's it like to learn that?

LYNSKEY: I mean, I had a feeling he might not have been most like on the level.

Um, that's, so I wanna know everything about him.

GATES: Melanie was about to get her wish.

Now that we knew his actual name, we were able to learn a great deal about Archibald Sharpe.

We discovered that when Melanie's grandfather was conceived, Archibald was not only married, he had already fathered two children.

We were also able to show Melanie records revealing that as a young man, Archibald had been a fantastic athlete who had won fame as a rower, and we were able to show her something else as well.

LYNSKEY: Oh, is that him?

GATES: That is your great-grandfather.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

Wow, okay.

He looks quite a lot like my brother Sam.

GATES: Really?

LYNSKEY: Mm-hmm.

GATES: How does it feel to be able to see and name the mystery that haunted your grandfather to the day he died?

LYNSKEY: It sort of like bittersweet because it feels like incredible, incredible that it's solved, but also it was the only thing he ever wanted.

GATES: He did the best he could.

LYNSKEY: Oh, he did so much work, it was his life's work, like truly.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

LYNSKEY: It's very big.

Sorry, I'm trying not to cry too much, but I can't help it.

It was such a big deal for my granddad.

GATES: Of course.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: And for you.

LYNSKEY: Yeah and for me.

GATES: You have, you have DNA from him.

That's your great-grandfather.

You are biologically descended from the man in front of you.

LYNSKEY: I know, this naughty cad.

(laughter).

GATES: There was another beat to this story, one that suggests that Archibald was an even bigger cad than Melanie had imagined.

When he passed away, two obituaries were published surveying his life, and one of them contained a very curious detail.

It says that Archibald was married to someone named Phil, but we know from his death certificate that he was married to someone named Susannah.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: You wanna guess what was going on?

LYNSKEY: Archibald.

This is crazy, this is crazy.

So he was married, he stayed married to Susannah, but then he married somebody else.

Wow.

Sir, this is not okay.

GATES: It's called Bigamy.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: The Phil listed in this obituary was a woman named Philomena Changato, and Archibald fathered at least two children with her.

He even lived with her for a period of time, presumably under the name Archibald Allan.

Because Philamena went by Philamena Allan leading us to an inescapable conclusion.

Based on available records Archibald Sharpe appears to have led a double life for decades.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: He went by at least two aliases, Archibald Allan and Archibald McMann.

LYNSKEY: Oh, just throwing a new one in there.

Wow, okay.

GATES: And he had children with at least three women... LYNSKEY: Gosh.

GATES: Susannah, Philomena, and your great-grandmother, Jessie.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: What are you feeling right now?

LYNSKEY: I feel like actually a deep relief because clearly this man had problems, you know, and it's like a heartbreaking thing, and I feel for my granddad, but it just sort of feels like, I mean, it's terrible that it also happened to other people too, but I dunno for him to know that he was not alone and oh, it's all so sad and like really interesting.

Sorry, but like a double life and fake names and my gosh, this is not what I was expecting.

GATES: We'd already seen how Debra Messing's great-grandfather Hyam, immigrated to the United States in 1923, transplanting the Messing family from a small town in Poland to the Lower East Side of New York.

Now we turned our attention back to Poland, where Hyam's brother Abraham settled in the city of Krakow.

Abraham is Debra's great-grand uncle.

Have you ever heard of him?

MESSING: No.

GATES: Okay.

Unlike your great grandparents who left the search for a better life in America, Abraham never left Poland.

MESSING: Wow.

GATES: Mm.

MESSING: Why do you think that was?

GATES: You know, for almost every guest sitting where you are sitting, some had it out and some said too much risk.

MESSING: Yeah, yeah.

GATES: I'm staying here.

MESSING: Right.

GATES: This has never been discussed in your family.

MESSING: No.

GATES: We found Abraham listed in the 1921 census for Krakow with his wife, Sara and their three children.

At the time, the family was living in the heart of the city's Jewish quarter where Abraham sold antiques.

They likely felt safe and comfortable.

After all Krakow had had a thriving Jewish community for over 800 years.

But all that was about to change.

MESSING: Oh my God.

GATES: That's Krakow and those are Nazis.

MESSING: Wow.

GATES: Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, sparking World War II, just five days later on September 6th, the German army entered Krakow.

At the time, approximately 56,000 Jewish people resided in the city, including your family.

What do you imagine it must have been like for your family here, knowing that Abraham and his family were in so much danger across the Atlantic?

MESSING: Oh God, that must have been horrifying, terrifying.

And I imagine once the Nazis came in, that that communication would've been cut off, right?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: You wouldn't been, they wouldn't have been able to get mailed to each other because... GATES: No, that's right, I mean it was a place at war.

MESSING: Yeah.

GATES: The German occupation brought wave after wave of horror.

Within months, the Nazis were confiscating Jewish property, destroying the city's synagogues, and systematically killing Jewish residents.

Debra wanted to know what happened to her family.

We found Abraham, as well as his son, Salman, and his daughter Vita, listed on registers of the Jewish population of Krakow.

From July and August of 1940, these registers were compiled by the Nazis.

They provide a glimpse into the lives of Debra's relatives and hint at their fates.

MESSING: "Garfinkel Salman, born 12/17/1916, in Krakow, unmarried, occupation of pattern cutter from Krakow, currently residing in Krakow Nova 3.

We confirm the identity of the above person by means of the below photograph.

The above information has been stated for the purpose of issuing an identity card from the Jewish community in Krakow regarding the matter of resettlement of the above mentioned individual from Krakow."

This is heartbreaking.

GATES: In May of 1940, the Nazis gave an order for Krakow's Jews to leave town voluntarily.

According to those documents that you just read, your great-granduncle, Abraham, as well as at least two of his children, were to be resettled in the town where Abraham was born, 100 miles east of Krakow.

And you can see Salman and Vita's photographs attached to those documents.

What do you see when you look at them?

They're your first cousins twice removed.

MESSING: Oh my gosh.

I mean, Vita, I mean, her eyes are, they're like spooked.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Wow.

God.

Just the fact that they have not been part of our, they haven't ever been acknowledged by the family.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: You know?

And now to have their pictures and to be able to be like, okay, we know we, we know what you went through.

GATES: Right.

MESSING: Wow.

GATES: The overwhelming majority of Krakow's Jewish population would ultimately be murdered many at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

But we don't know what happened to Abraham, Vita or Salman after they sign these registration documents.

There are simply no records to tell us.

And we have no idea at all about what happened to Abraham's wife, Sara, or his daughter, Golda.

All we know is that we found no evidence that any of them survived the war.

MESSING: And we don't know whether or not they died in Krakow or at a concentration camp?

GATES: We don't know, but they died as a result of the Nazis.

MESSING: Of the Nazis.

GATES: It's definite that they did.

In all it's believed that roughly 54,000 of Krakow Jews perished in the Holocaust, that's roughly 97% of the city's pre-war Jewish population.

Did you ever imagine when you were learning about the Holocaust that you had such a tangible family connection?

MESSING: No, no, I didn't.

People would always ask me, you know, did your, was, did you have any family in the Holocaust?

And I was like, no.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: Wow.

God, it's so sad.

I can't even imagine the terror that they experienced.

GATES: Why do you think nobody ever talked about this?

MESSING: I, I think it was too painful.

It was just too painful to acknowledge.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

MESSING: I mean, I asked my father specifically, I said, how did, how did this one die?

How did this one die?

He's like, I don't know.

GATES: Huh.

MESSING: Now we know.

GATES: We'd already answered questions that had haunted Melanie Lynskey's mother's family for decades.

Now, turning to her father's ancestry.

We confronted a question that had lingered for generations.

Melanie knew that she had deep roots in New Zealand, but she had no idea how her family had ended up there or where they had come from.

Our search began with an obituary published in a New Zealand newspaper on December 22nd, 1917.

It details the life of Melanie's great-great-grandfather, a man named Michael Lynskey.

LYNSKEY: "Mr. Michael Lynskey, who died at Kaiapoi yesterday in his 80th year, was an early resident of Canterbury.

Born in county Mayo, Ireland, in 1838, he came to Lyttleton in 1861.

He became a member of the police force, and shortly afterwards was appointed bailiff for North Canterbury."

Did not know any of this.

"Subsequently, he became clerk of the Magistrate's Court, registrar of electors at Kaiapoi returning officer and deputy-registrar of old age pensions.

Mr. Lynskey retired from the public service in 1903 after 42 years' service."

Wow, wow.

How did you even find this?

I mean, I know it's like the show, but it's like so crazy.

Wow.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

LYNSKEY: It's incredible.

Um, that's so interesting.

Also to see, um, that he was born in Ireland.

GATES: Mm-hmm, you had no idea?

LYNSKEY: No, no idea, no idea.

This is incredible.

GATES: As it turns out, Michael's story was shaped by a single decision.

He was born in county Mayo on the western coast of Ireland, a place where his family had likely lived for centuries.

Michael might well have remained here himself, but in 1859, when he was 21 years old, he married Melanie's great-great-grandmother, a woman named Ellen Moran, just as Ireland was falling into an economic depression.

The couple had their first child about a year later as the depression deepened.

So Michael and Ellen decided to take a chance and book passage on a ship bound for the British colony of New Zealand almost 12,000 miles away.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: Let's imagine the emotions your ancestors were feeling.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: Excitement, terror.

LYNSKEY: Probably like true sorrow as well, leaving everybody you love and everything you know, and knowing that it's not going very well there, you know, not knowing if you'll see people again and... GATES: I mean, imagine the conversation with their parents, "Something we need to tell you..." LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: "We're going to New Zealand."

"What?"

LYNSKEY: "What's that?"

GATES: Michael and Ellen were actually making a reasonable decision, this was a time of rapid economic growth in New Zealand.

Even so, we made a map of their voyage, and it was almost overwhelming to contemplate.

LYNSKEY: Oh, that's amazing.

Oh my gosh, what a crazy journey to have made.

GATES: You see county Mayo?

LYNSKEY: Mm.

GATES: Michael and Ellen started out by traveling from county Mayo to London.

Then they sailed past the Canary Islands, Cape Verde.

LYNSKEY: Mm.

GATES: South Africa and Australia.

They were at sea for 103 days, that's over three months.

LYNSKEY: No, thank you.

GATES: With a baby.

And you know what?

They weren't exactly in first class.

LYNSKEY: No, no, wow, that's an incredible journey to make.

GATES: Can you imagine you're a mother?

LYNSKEY: Yes.

GATES: How would you have fared?

LYNSKEY: Uh, badly, would not have enjoyed that.

No, I mean, I took my daughter on a flight from Atlanta when she was six weeks old, 'cause she was born in Atlanta.

GATES: Mm.

LYNSKEY: And that was, she was very good on the flight... GATES: Uh-huh.

LYNSKEY: But, you know, four hours on a plane.

GATES: Oh.

LYNSKEY: I was like, I did it.

It's, wow, that's incredible.

GATES: When the journey finally ended, the Lynskey faced new challenges.

They were taken to an immigration barracks where they received a week of free lodging.

After that, they were expected to pay their own way.

So they had to find jobs and housing almost immediately, while also adapting to a brand new land.

But somehow they did it.

And what's more, they seem to have liked it as evidenced by the passenger record of a ship that arrived in New Zealand in June of 1865.

On board were two of Michael's siblings.

LYNSKEY: Oh my gosh.

GATES: Do you know what's happening there?

LYNSKEY: Did they bring their family?

GATES: Yes.

LYNSKEY: Awww.

(laughter).

Mm.

GATES: Your, your great-great grandfather Michael was the first of his siblings to emigrate to New Zealand.

LYNSKEY: Aww.

GATES: Just four years after his arrival, his younger siblings, William and Sarah, as well as his likely sister-in-law, Catherine... LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: ...also made the trip.

And in 1873, two other siblings, Edward and Annie followed.

Were you aware of this?

LYNSKEY: No, but it's...

I'm so close with my siblings, like, we're so close to each other, so this is really beautiful to see.

Like, this is what we would've done.

GATES: Yeah.

LYNSKEY: Oh, wow.

GATES: All in all, between 1861 and 1888, six of Michael Lynskey's brothers and sisters followed in his footsteps and made the grueling trip from Ireland to New Zealand.

LYNSKEY: Wow.

GATES: Did your family ever talk about that?

LYNSKEY: No, we didn't know, we don't know any, any of this.

GATES: What's it like to learn that?

LYNSKEY: That's incredible.

It's like making me very emotional just because, you know what, how I feel about my siblings.

It's just really beautiful.

Wow.

GATES: What's it been like for you to learn so much about your father's roots?

Things that when we met you had absolutely no idea about.

LYNSKEY: I'm, I can't quite believe, I'm just, uh, yeah.

It's, I feel literally like I'm at a loss for words and yeah, the processing, like, it's really taking me a minute to just, it's a lot of incredible information.

Look at all that, I mean... GATES: Lot of input... LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: To be processed.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: But you know what's cool, Melanie?

When we met all these people had been lost in all these stories.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: And now they'll never be lost again.

LYNSKEY: Yeah.

GATES: That's your Book of Life, you can turn the pages every day, dear.

LYNSKEY: Yeah, it's so special, so special.

The paper trail had run out for each of my guests.

MESSING: Oh my gosh.

GATES: It was time to show them their full family trees.

LYNSKEY: Oh my goodness.

GATES: All your family tree... Now filled with people whose names they never heard before.

LYNSKEY: Gosh, I, my brain is like... (makes sound).

GATES: For each, it was a moment of awe.

MESSING: It just, it just gets my imagination running the kind of lives that they lived.

GATES: And our journey wasn't over yet.

When we compared Melanie and Debra's, DNA to that of others who've been in the series, we found a match for each of them.

Evidence within their own chromosomes of distant cousins that they never knew they had.

Questlove.

LYNSKEY: Really?

GATES: Yes, Questlove is 18% European.

LYNSKEY: And is related to me?

GATES: Oh, he's your DNA cousin.

Your father and Questlove, as well as Questlove's mother, share a long, identical segment of DNA on your 15th chromosome.

LYNSKEY: I am very excited.

GATES: How about that?

How surprised were you when this was the outcome?

GATES: I couldn't believe it.

LYNSKEY: This is so amazing, he's such a sweet guy.

GATES: Yeah.

LYNSKEY: That's incredible.

GATES: Please turn the page.

MESSING: What, what?

Are you kidding me?

Bernie Sanders.

GATES: You, your DNA cousin is Senator Bernie Sanders.

MESSING: No way.

GATES: You and Bernie share segments of DNA on chromosomes 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, and 22.

MESSING: Oh my gosh, that is mind blowing.

That's the end of our journey with Debra Messing and Melanie Lynskey.

Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of "Finding Your Roots."