We'd already explored Valerie Bertinelli's paternal roots revealing the hardships faced by her grandfather, Nazzareno.

Now, turning to Valerie's mother, Nancy Carvin, we confronted hardships of a very different kind.

Nancy lost her own mother when she was just eight years old, and her father remarried soon after, turning her world upside down.

She said everything changed when her mother died.

And she became miserable, such a young age to become miserable, because I remember so much joy when I was eight years old.

She said she missed her, she wished she had had her around.

She thought she was absolutely beautiful.

I've never seen a picture of her.

She thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Yeah, I felt my mom's yearning for her mother.

Oh, I can't imagine losing your mother when you're eight years old.

Yeah, what a horrible way to grow up.

Her grandmother's early death effectively erased all knowledge of her roots.

But we were able to recover some of what had been lost.

Tracing her family back three generations to Valerie's great-great-grandfather.

Would you please read his name?

William David Chambers.

- And when was he born?

- 16th of July, 1847, 1850.

Likely in Cecil County, Maryland.

And you've never heard of him?

And you've never heard of any of those ancestors all the way up?

- No.

- What's it like to see that?

It makes me miss my mother because she would've loved this.

- Yeah.

- She would've really loved this.

She missed having, God I'm sorry.

She missed having a connection with her mother.

Oh my God, I don't, she never even knew her grandfathers' names.

Wow, oh, Mom, I wish you could see this.

Valerie's mother would likely have especially enjoyed seeing what was coming next.

We found her ancestor William in the 1875 city directory for Wilmington, Delaware, working at a factory that made steel bolts for the railroads.

At the time, the railroad industry was booming and William's skills would've been in demand all across the United States.

But William set his sights elsewhere.

"List or manifest of all the passengers taken aboard the steam ship city of Pará at Rio de Janeiro?"

- Yes, that's right.

- "Name William Chambers, age 27 years old," he went to Rio?

Your great-great-grandfather went to Brazil.

Wow!

Wow, obrigado!

That's the one word I know in Portuguese.

Obrigado, that's right.

Here he is on a ship sailing back from Rio de Janeiro.

You've never heard anything at all about this?

No!

Any idea what he may have been doing in Brazil in the 1870s?

No!

William was in Brazil for one simple reason, money.

He joined an expedition to work on a railroad, designed to transport rubber, then an extremely profitable crop, out of the Amazon jungle.

Labor shortages in the region led the project's funders to try to lure American workers to the site with promises of high wages.

William heard the call and ended up in what sounds like a nightmare.

"The forest is so dense that a person straying 100 feet from a given point is often unable to find his way back and liable to get lost and die in the woods.

The vines grow so thick around the trees that the forest top in some places is a regular network.

And when you want to remove one particular tree, you are often obliged to cut down seven or eight others."

What a job.

Can you imagine cutting through the Amazon by hand?

No.

I bet he woke up and said, "What the hell am I doing here?"

You know?

- Right, it better be worth it.

William spent roughly seven months in Brazil.

During that time, he and his fellow workers managed to lay only four miles of track, and they paid an extraordinary price.

The Americans in his group suffered a mortality rate of roughly 24%.

Meaning one in four died.

- Wow.

- So your ancestor was very lucky to get back home alive.

What do you imagine William felt when he got off that ship and stepped onto U.S. soil?

"Thank God!"

I'm sure he was so happy to be home.

What do you think he did next?

- I have no idea.

- Please turn the page.

Valerie, these are city directories and census documents for Camden, New Jersey between the years 1897 and 1905.

Now, would you please read what all of these documents say about William's various occupations?

He kept looking for work, "Occupation, insurance, occupation, superintendent Phila," oh, Philadelphia, I guess.

"Business directory, occupation, book agent, occupation, telephone worker, occupation, real estate."

Yeah.

He was a go-getter, I guess one word, I mean, either he was fired a lot or he just kept trying to find something that he could do, wow.

Now, as someone who's constantly trying new things, constantly reinventing herself?

Who are you talking about?

Wow, yeah.

Can you relate to your ancestor?

Absolutely, I can't even count all the jobs I've had since I was 12 years old.

And I keep just doing new stuff.

Whatever interests me, it's, oh, this'll be fun.

Yeah!

Let's do this, let's try this.

- Ha!

- How about that?

I'm like, good old, great-great-grandpa.

Valerie's connection to her ancestor was about to deepen significantly.

Another Camden business directory revealed that the two shared more than just a talent for reinvention.

Valerie, would you please read the occupation that your ancestor had in 1910?

Stop it, wow!

- He was a baker!

- He was a baker.

He was a baker, it goes down through my history.

You got it.

He was a baker.

I'm, oh my God, he was a baker.

Yeah, he was a baker, a professional baker.

How do you feel knowing that you and this guy shared a passion?

And how does it make you feel having this unknown, totally unknown branch of family tree restored to you?

I'm grateful.

I just, I'm so grateful.