‘Lee And Liza’s Family Tree’ Sees Byron Hurt Explore His Ancestors’ Lost Stories

Filmmaker Byron Hurt is chronicling his family history in the upcoming NOVA premiere Lee and Liza’s Family Tree. In the exclusive clip below, Hurt and his family take on the challenges of finding out the answers about their ancestors.

The film follows Hurt and his family as they rediscover their family tree, which had been marred by slavery. According to the film’s synopsis, Hurt’s large family has an executive committee, by-laws, and a reunion to celebrate the family’s two oldest known ancestors, Lee Hurt Sr. and Liza Waller Hurt. However, the details of Lee and Liza’s lives aren’t known, until now. As the synopsis states:

Many descendants of enslaved people have little record of their family’s ancestry. Follow one family’s quest to discover their lost history, and see how science and genealogy can help rebuild a family tree broken by slavery. Join filmmaker Byron Hurt at his extended family reunion as they celebrate the joy of family in the African diaspora, and discover new details of their history that they thought were lost forever.

As many Black families who have sought to discover their histories can relate, it’s not easy piece together the past. While millions of Americans with European backgrounds can use their DNA to easily trace their histories, Black Americans who are descendants of slaves can only go back so far without running into issues, such as a lack of records and documentation. This leaves many Black Americans’ lineages a mystery to their descendants.

To create the documentary, Hurt films himself and his family as multiple generations rediscover their history and utilize geneaology and experts such as Howard University’s Dr. Fatimah Jackson to bring to light Lee and Liza’s lives. The film also explores how Black families can use genetic testing tools and technologies such as Ancestry and 23andMe to find out more about their past.

“Directing Lee and Liza’s Family Tree was a very special journey for me,” Hurt said in a statement. “For starters, I had never made a science-based documentary before this one. So, for someone who hated science in high school, this was a challenge that took me completely out of my comfort zone. The best part of making this film was documenting my family’s journey to discover our unknown family history using genetic ancestry test kits. I come from a large and beautiful family that has held well-organized family reunions for 37 years. It was such an honor for me to chronicle our family’s ancestry committee as they went about the process of turning over stones to find out new information about family members and how far we could go back through the generations — beyond our oldest known patriarch and matriarch, Lee Hurt and Eliza (Liza) Waller. I hope that audiences will be moved by my family’s story, learn how to conduct DNA research with their family members, and commit to documenting their family history so that upcoming generations can know and appreciate their heritage.”

Lee and Liza’s Family Tree will air on PBS on Nov. 22 at 9/8c. It will also be available for streaming on PBS online or at the PBS App.

Watch an exclusive preview below: