We'd already identified Laurence Fishburne's biological father, solving a mystery that had haunted him for decades.

Now we turn to Laurence's father's ancestors, men and women whose lives Laurence had never even contemplated before.

As it turns out, one of them has an incredible story.

It begins with the 1870 Census for Ohio, where we found Laurence's great-great-grandfather, a man named Paul Sandridge.

"Inhabitants in Jefferson Township in the county of Montgomery, state of Ohio.

Paul Sandridge, age 28, Black, occupation, farmer, place of birth, Virginia."

According to this census, your great-great-grandfather Paul was born around 1842, which is 19 years before the outbreak of the Civil War in Virginia.

So, you know what that means about his status?

He was enslaved.

He was enslaved.

Have you given much thought to your- you know, you saw Roots, right?

We all did.

To your ancestors who may have been enslaved?

All the time.

All my life, I think.

Without knowing who they were or what they might have endured.

Right.

I've always known and really had a connection to that experience.

I've thought about it, I've considered it, and I have used it as fuel to make the most of my life.

We now set out to learn whatever we could about how Laurence's ancestors experienced slavery.

And immediately, we faced a question, if Paul was born in Virginia, how did he end up in Ohio, roughly 300 miles away?

Searching for an answer, we eventually focused on Paul's mother, a woman named Lucy Carpenter.

This led us to the archives of Amherst County, Virginia, where we found the estate records of a slave owner named Eaton Carpenter.

They suggest that Eaton shaped the fate of Laurence's family.

"I, Eaton Carpenter, do make this to be my last will and testament.

It is my will and desire that all my slaves that I am possessed of at the time of my death be emancipated and set free.

It is my will and desire that all my estate, both land and perishable property, other than the slaves, be sold by my executor upon such terms and in such manner as he shall think best, and the proceeds of the sales thereof be applied to the removal and settlement of the slaves to some of the free states.

The money arising from the proceeds of the sales of my land and perishable property shall be divided equally amongst them all to buy lands to settle them upon."

Wow, that's amazing.

That's amazing.

So, what do you make of this guy, old Eaton Carpenter?

Old Eaton, well, it makes me wonder what his relationship was to these people.

That's the question.

And it makes you think...

He loved them.

He cared for them.

Yeah, and was probably related to some of them.

I think those are reasonable assumptions.

We believe that Eaton Carpenter was likely Paul's great-uncle, but he may have been his grandfather, or simply a right-minded man who wanted to free his slaves.

We can't be certain.

What we do know is that in the wake of Eaton's death, Paul and his mother and siblings journeyed north to Ohio, a free state where they took up farming.