In the striking documentary Finding Oprah's Roots, Oprah Winfrey talks about her lifelong search to fill out her family tree -- back through slavery to Africa.

"I think our journey on the planet is about continual movement forward of your personal self," she tells host, writer and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who inspired and led this project. "And I feel that there is no way that you can do that unless you are connected to the root -- the root of the past, ancestors being a part of that."

Finding Oprah's Roots, newly released to DVD, is subtitled Finding Your Own. The DVD offers a 103-minute version of the film. It illuminates Winfrey's family saga, shows how Gates traced his own roots and encourages others to follow the clues for themselves.

"I wrote this film," Gates tells Sun Media from his home near Harvard University, "to show people how to do it. We are unlocking a door from which the key had been lost."

That especially applies to those of African heritage in the U.S. and Canada, he says. "For a lot of people, the door was covered in moss. People didn't even know the door was there. It was just a lament for so many people."

The latest film is an extension of Gates' efforts on another PBS doc, African American Lives (also on DVD). On that show, he traced the genealogy of Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Chris Tucker, Whoopi Goldberg and other prominent African-Americans. There is a sequel planned that will highlight Beyonce Knowles, Morgan Freeman, Dave Chapelle and others.

The first Lives show was a huge hit, for a PBS show. But it was criticized for not going into depth. Finding Oprah's Roots solves that in her case.

"We picked Oprah because she is Oprah, of course," Gates says with a chuckle. "And it would be disingenuous of me not to admit that. But (also) because she had a fantastic lineage that we had been able to uncover."

Now the Winfrey family is taken back into slavery and her racial heritage is traced back to a Liberian tribe.

The techniques used are varied. The modern one is DNA analysis, the clincher for Winfrey's tribal identity. The old is dogged research. The DVD shows viewers how to find the needed documentation. DNA is the breakthrough, especially for people whose ancestors were part of the slave trade, Gates says.

"The means of knowing had been withheld from African-Americans for all these long centuries. None of us knew and now we can find out through the mysteries of DNA."

That can lead to surprises. Gates found out his own racial admixture is half-Caucasian, leading to self-deprecating jokes that he should resign his post as the head of African-American studies at Harvard.

In Winfrey's case, Gates' team uncovered an astonishing story of an ancestor who was an illiterate slave who, after emancipation, empowered himself by buying land and supporting his community by moving a school onto his property.

"Oprah's story is so important because it shows why Oprah is Oprah," Gates says. "The twin themes in her genealogy are the acquisition of land and education."

While "your past does not pre-determine you," Gates says, it can inspire someone like Winfrey.

"Despite the fact that she has this horrible tragedy of sexual molestation at the age of nine and she gave birth at the age of 14, she had this other tradition that she could reach into.

"The point is that they were slaves and they survived and that should be an inspiring tale for anybody."

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