‘Finding Your Roots’: Melanie Lynskey Tears Up Over Grandfather’s Orphan Past (VIDEO)

Melanie Lynskey is one of the latest celebrities taking a deep dive into ancestry on Finding Your Roots, and it looks like her journey will be a rather emotional one.

In TV Insider’s exclusive sneak peek at Tuesday’s (February 25) new episode, Lynskey is presented with a document from her family’s past that brings her to tears.

She reads aloud, “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. I made contact with you as what would appear to be a last resort in my quest.” At that last line, she becomes overcome with emotion and says, “Sorry. I knew this was gonna happen when we got to my granddad.”

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The letter from her grandfather continues, “I’m now 69 years of age, was born and mastered in 1926 was baptized at St Joseph’s Church at Upper Hutt in 1927, and according to St Joseph’s Convent records, I arrived there as a five 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.”

When asked by host Henry Louis Gates Jr. about how it feels to read this document, Lynskey says through tears, “It breaks my heart. I know it’s like a huge, huge thing for him to not null, who he was even.”

The Yellowjackets star appears in Tuesday’s episode, titled “The Butterfly Effect,” which also features actress Debra Messing.

Still to come on the remainder of Finding Your Roots Season 11 are Abbott Elementary‘s Sheryl Lee Ralph and historian Lonnie Bunch (April 1) and Laurence Fishburne and Henry Louis Gates Jr. himself (April 8).

Finding Your Roots, Tuesdays, 8/7c, PBS

From TV Guide Magazine

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