In 2000, when "Motherland" was filmed, using DNA to trace your African roots for real, it seemed like science fiction. Now, everybody is doing it. What a change in a few short years. The participants in the film come from all walks of life: school teachers, social workers, musicians. Jacqueline Harriott (one of the three protagonists searching their genetic ancestors) is the only one connected to "fame" (she is the sister of TV cook Ainsley Harriott), and the film modestly makes no mention of this.
This must be one of the rare instances when a British documentary film by blacks and for blacks has fostered an entire branch of popular science, in this case genetic ancestry research. Perhaps the popular scientific impact is comparable only to the Apollo moon landings and the subsequent rise of popular astronomy.
Peter Forster and Susan Gurney