How cool is it that the family photo album on Stephen Colbert's coffee table is a Kolo Newport.

It’s presented to everyone's favorite political satirist by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on the PBS mini-series, “Faces of America,” which airs tonight (Wed. March 3rd) in most U.S. markets at 8 p.m. (but check your local listings). Tonight, at least two of the featured celebrities coincidentally find out they're related. Talk about a small world.

Colbert’s archival Kolo Newport contains illuminating information about his forebears. This is Steve Colbert as we rarely see him; not in character, just being himself. He explains his curiosity about his ancestral roots:

It’s so great to know what they went through, that I should exist.

He recalls a moment he was overcome with respect for his Irish immigrant ancestors’ sacrifice, the hardship they faced to make it in the “New World,” most of them to escape Ireland’s Great Famine. It hit him once on his way to the theater, as he was crossing the Erie Canal:

I looked to my right and I saw this line just shooting off into almost infinite distance up ahead of me. And I thought… THAT, I know, helped bring my ancestors over here. That’s what kept them alive, was work in that pit. That ditch right there is part of my legacy as an American.

Tune into PBS tonight for Colbert's and many other famous Americans' interesting ancestral stories.

- Ugo