From http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/about/
Three guests whose ancestry demonstrates the extraordinary influence of the British Empire during the 18th and early 19th century: Sally Field discovers that she descends from William Bradford, who arrived on the Mayflower and helped his fellow English Puritans establish their new lives in colonial America and later discovers that her ancestors sided with the British crown during our nation’s War of Independence and paid the ultimate price; Deepak Chopra’s family made a similar gamble while living under harsh British colonial rule in India, where his grandparents pledged their loyalty to the British in hopes of achieving a higher place in society, and later his father chose to fight alongside British soldiers during World War II; Sting’s story goes back centuries in England where we find that being close to the seat of Empire doesn’t mean that life is any better for those who fueled Great Britain’s world dominance during the Pax Britannica by building its merchant ships and working in its coal mines, and who toiled under unbearable working conditions and Dickensian poverty—conditions that would lead to the “Age of Revolution,” in which the young United States was a key player.
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