Matt Damon And Ben Affleck Are Related

BOSTON — It seems Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are more than childhood pals and Hollywood collaborators.

According to the New England Genealogical Society, they're also cousins. Tenth cousins, once removed, that is.

Society researchers dug up evidence that both Damon and Affleck are descended from William Knowlton Jr. He was a bricklayer who came to the U.S. from England in the 1630s and settled in Ipswich.

The society said Friday that Affleck has lots of other famous relatives, including 16 U.S. presidents – Barack Obama among them – and the late Princess Diana.

Affleck and Damon were friends growing up in the Boston area and teamed up as writers and co-stars for the 1997 film "Good Will Hunting."

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On the Net:

New England Historic Genealogical Society: http://www.newenglandancestors.org

Comments

[jjgg5]

Does that make it incest?

[moonstorm]

We all are.

[mockley]

So what. Isn't everyone in the history of the planet related to Kevin Bacon?

[Klaus1]

I bet their bu** babies would be very good looking.

[AbsolutDemocrat]

God, who cares?

[1will]

The Huffpost sure has a lot of pics from Sunday's Gay Pride rally.

[AlieNation]

Yes and Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are 8th cousins.

So what's your point?

[demfriend]

I guess when you look at the world we all are "related" somehow if you recall the old Kevin Bacon game!!

[Gwendolyn LWhite]

Read the BIBLE!!!

[Noland]

That's just sad. I bet you really believe it too.

[Progress08]

I prefer my fiction to be modern.

[crayola 08b]

i prefer sci-fi to fairy tales

[Palaver]

They are as related to each other every other person in the U.S.--except recent immigrants.

[CaliGrown78]

WOOPTY F"IN DOO?

[OldHick]

Yes, but how many love children can you identify among the stars? And how many have relatives they would rather not tell you about? Like Uncle Jerome, in this case.

[bgofca]

both are good actors who devote lots of time and effort to important causes. I admire them both for that.

[truthartbeauty]

they look like they could be brothers.

[ignorantwillyharper]

Take that index finger and place it on the inside of the thumb, then flick the fly from your screen. That should bring the view in to prospective.

[Alonso Quijano]

ALL of us are related to one another if we go back far enough. There may or may not be written records, and the records may or may not be correct. About 10% of birth certificates record the wrong biological father. Religious conservatives may hold that all of us descend from Adam and Eve. The scientifically oriented may believe the DNA evidence that all of us are descended from one or a very few female ancestors.

All of us would have to have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great great grandparents, and so on, DISTINCT AND DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER, in order not to be related. If you do the math, within a very few hundred years going back the world populationn would have to be far greater than it was in fact, in order for us not to be, on the average, related. Going back about a thousand years for any two of us not to be related, as the number of distinct ancestors for person would have to be greater than the entire human world population.

One could construct a theory of "islands" of genetic mixing, so that no one in Madagascar would be related to anyone in Japan unless one went way way back, but any two persons of similar ethnic background are bound to be related within historical times with probability so close to 1 that it should be expected rather than a surprise.

[littlechuckie]

Oh, the science to the logic.
Now you're going to tell me I'm related to my wife.

[MJinCanada]

Check out a book called "The Seven Daughters of Eve." Using mitochondrial DNA, researchers have backtracked the ancestors of most Europeans to the Black Sea area and central Asia. Work continues in Africa and Asia.