Bil Paxton (courtesy of TLC)

Actor Bill Paxton will be searching his paternal line on the next episode of Who Do Think You Are? (WDYTYA). He begins by solving a long-standing mystery by determining that he is related to Texas hero Sam Houston. What is amazing is that Bill is portraying him in a mini-series (Texas Rising) starting out late next month.

Bill finds that his 4x great grandfather, Benjamin Sharp, served as a spy during the Revolutionary War. Bill then heads off to a historic battle site in South Carolina. He also finds that Benjamin Sharp became a civil servant after the War. He then moved to Missouri about 1814. Bill ends up visiting Ben’s grave in Warren Co., MO.

This episode of WDYTYA airs at 10 p.m. (eastern & western times) on the TLC channel April 19th.