Ciara learned a surprising family secret on the Season 10 premiere of "Finding Your Roots," and said the experience led to an overall sense of clarity.
“I feel more clear. I feel like I know myself even more," she told host Henry Louis Gates Jr. at the end of the episode.
Ciara's DNA records revealed a mystery regarding her maternal great-grandfather, a man named Willie Bub Head. Born in 1905, Willie Head — or “Grandpa Willie” — lived with Ciara’s family when she was younger.
While Ciara was related to people through Willie Head and his mother, Emily Redding, she shared no DNA matches with the man thought to be Willie's biological father, Nathan Head.
"What are you about to tell me right now?" Ciara said, laughing.
Turns out Nathan Head was not Willie Head's biological father. Using more DNA research, the "Finding Your Roots" team pieced together the identity of Ciara's real ancestor: A white man named Walker Lafayette Head.
"Your biological great-great-grandfather was white," Gates told Ciara.
"That's crazy," she said. Ciara then brought up the texture of her great-grandfather's hair.
"I look at some of the photos that I did get to see from when he was younger with my grandmother and it was fine hair," she said.
The "Finding Your Roots" team sketched out how Redding and Walker Head may have met and conceived their son.
The 1870 census showed that Walker and Nathan Head grew up on the same land but lived very different lives. Walker Head was the white son of a landowner; Nathan Head was a Black sharecropper.
"At some point, when the men were about 40, Walker slept with Nathan’s wife and conceived your great-grandfather Willie," Gates said.
At the time, Nathan and Walker Head were no longer living in the same county — Nathan Head and his wife, Redding, had moved to Monroe County, Georgia, 80 miles away from Butts County, Georgia, where Walker Head lived. Then, Nathan Head rented land from a man named Robert Whit Torbet in Butts County, Georgia, not far from land owned by Walker Head.
"Nathan Head is renting land from this white guy who lives right near Walker Head, who would conceive a child with Nathan’s wife and lead eventually to you," Gates summed up.
Gates asked Ciara what she made of Walker Head and Redding's relationship. Ciara liked to think it was consensual. “I’d like to believe there was some connectivity that happened,” she said.
Gates pointed out that regardless, this was not a relationship with a future. Interracial marriage was illegal in Georgia at the time. Further, both were married; Walker Head had seven children. Walker Head died at the age of 43, when his son Willie Head was just over 2.
Ciara speculated as to whether Willie Head ever knew the truth of his parentage. "He probably, at some point in time, looked up and went, 'Hm.' Maybe you know, but life just keeps moving on," she said.
She described the experience of "Finding Your Roots" as "powerful." Ciara's family tree keeps growing: She recently welcomed her fourth child, daughter Amora, with NFL pro Russell Wilson.