On October 6, 2009, the New England Historic and Genealogical Society (NEHGS) issued a statement that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were 10th cousins, once removed. Immediately, I was interested, because of all my New England ancestors, I thought there could be a chance I shared a name or two. Locating their common ancestor, William Knowlton, I realized that we were all related. Ben and I are 10th cousins, and Matt and I are 9th cousins, once removed. Wow, really kissing cousins.
The NEHGS chart site is located at: http://www.newenglandancestors.org/pdfs/affleck_damon_connection.pdf
Of course, I put their lineage into my tree, and a statement as to why the names of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are listed.
I won't get too excited about this, as years ago, when I discovered I had John Alden and Priscilla Mullins as direct ancestors, I was almost bragging. That was until somebody told me, there were over one million descendants to that Mayflower family. That did it, and that fact brought me down to reality.
Oh, I almost forgot, Randy Seaver and I are also related, probably 10th cousins. Should I add Randy into my tree? He wrote about his new found cousins, on his blog, see: http://www.geneamusings.com/2009/10/found-some-new-cousins.html