Amanda Seyfried discovers unsettling family secret

Amanda Seyfried is learning all about her family roots, including some tragic killings.

In a teaser of an upcoming episode. the actress, 39, found out about a murder in her family back in the 1900s where her third great-grandfather John P. Ebert was gunned down outside his Washington home.

Seyfried discovered via a newspaper article from the time of the incident that her great-grandfather—a "well-known retired baker" and "a good citizen and an inoffensive man"—"was shot three times by an unknown assailant on the back step of his home at Washington and Lumber Streets" at 9:30 p.m.

Seyfried went on to read aloud, "He has just about reached the back door... when from between the outhouse and a grape arbor which screens it stepped a man who fired three shots at him point blank."

"Oh my God, that's so sad," the actress expressed.

When asked by host Henry Louis Gates Jr. if she had "ever heard this story before," the actress answered, "Nope, no. Definitely no."

The Emmy winner was then asked by Gates, 74, what it's like to read what happened to Ebert, to which she replied, "It's weird. I don't know him, but yet, he's family."

"I'm just like, 'How dare they!' Like, 'Find justice,'" she added.

The PBS series' 11th season debuts with a new roster of celebrities who will learn more about their family trees, including Seyfried.

This season’s guests also include Joy Behar, Kristen Bell, Laurence Fishburne, Debra Messing, Michael Imperioli, Melanie Lynskey, Natalie Morales, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lea Salonga, Dax Shepard, Sharon Stone, Chrissy Teigen, celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean Sherman, novelist Amy Tan, poet Rita Dove, historian Lonnie Bunch and musician Rubén Blades.