Tukufu Zuberi, whom you might know as one of PBS television’s four History Detectives, is the guest on Lisa Louise Cooke’s current Genealogy Gems podcast episode.

Zuberi is the keynote speaker at the Southern California Genealogical Society’s annual Jamboree June 26-28 (where Cooke will be teaching and staffing the Family Tree Magazine booth—so stop by!).

He tells Cooke about tracing the genealogy of a dummy: Sam, that is, the first black ventriloquist's dummy to appear on Broadway.

And Zuberi talks about the show’s mission to discover the truth about historical (or turn-out-not-to-be-historical) objects, tell the personal stories behind those objects and show how “history is reflected in the living.”

“History is a result of everyday people living their lives,” he says in the interview—a sentiment I’d wear on a t-shirt any day. A must-listen.