Sara Haines Tears Up as She Learns She's Related to 2 U.S. Presidents: 'I Won!'

'Finding Your Roots' host Henry Louis Gates Jr. shared the exciting findings on 'The View' on Feb. 5

NEED TO KNOW

• Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. stopped by The View on Thursday, Feb. 5, and teased some of the revelations he found about Sara Haines’ family history
• Among his discoveries was the fact that Haines, 48, is related to two former U.S. presidents
• In a clip from her episode of the PBS series, Haines teared up after learning who her relatives are

Sara Haines can't believe her family history.

On Friday, Feb. 5, Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of Finding Your Roots, joined Haines and her co-hosts on The View and gave a sneak-peek at one of the major revelations from her episode of the series.

In the clip shared on The View, Gates Jr. showed Haines, 48, a painting and asked if she knew who she was looking at. "He looks like a lot of people in my history book," Haines said.

"That's the second president of the United States," Gates revealed. "That's John Adams. He is your third cousin, nine times removed."

The revelation left Haines at a bit of a loss, as she laughed, then got teary-eyed. "Oh my God. I'm related to a president!" she said. "And he was a good one!"

After the clip finished, Gates Jr. shared yet another revelation about Haines' family tree.

"She's related, not to one president, but to two presidents," he revealed, because John's son, John Quincy Adams, followed in his father's footsteps and became the sixth U.S. president in 1825.

"We only had one other guest in the history of the series who was related to a president — unhappily so — that was Michael Moore, who was related to Herbert Hoover," Gaines Jr. continued.

"So I won, pretty much!" Haines said, and Gaines Jr. agreed, as he told her, "You are our first guest happily related to two United States presidents!"

Haines also learned about another heroic ancestor during her time on Finding Your Roots. In PEOPLE's exclusive clip from the Feb. 10 episode, Gates Jr. shared that Haines' sixth-great-grandfather, David Hottenstein, fought in the Revolutionary War when he was "roughly 40 years old," which "was old for a soldier."

David joined a "patriot militia," Gates Jr. revealed, and Haines found that story "really cool."

"I am deeply American," Haines said.

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Several of Haines' co-hosts have also been on Finding Your Roots and learned shocking things about their family history, including Sunny Hostin.

In 2024, Hostin learned that her ancestors "likely" owned slaves, and that she is only 7 percent indigenous Puerto Rican, which left her in "shock."

"I just always thought of myself as Puerto Rican, you know, half Puerto Rican. I didn't think my family was originally from Spain and slaveholders," she said.

Hostin later shared on The View that the information had also shocked her mother. "It was deeply disappointing, because my mother really identified as Puerto Rican. She was part of the civil rights movement, and she was deeply ingrained in Black culture and identified herself as Black race but Hispanic for ethnicity, but her race is white — she’s European," Hostin said.

Hostin said her mom "actually cried about it" after she shared what she'd learned. "And then she said, ‘Maybe that’s why I have been so connected to Black culture, because it's an atonement in my spirit.' "
"I still believe this country has a lot to do in terms of racial justice. But what I will say, Sara, to your question is that I feel that I’m enriched by knowing that history," Hostin continued. "And I’m enriched by knowing that my family has come so far from being enslavers to my mother marrying my father in 1968. I feel enriched by it."

Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on PBS.