Although things have calmed down and now the British actor seems to be more selective with the projects he chooses, there were a few years in which benedict cumberbatch dominated the billboard… and more for having become Doctor Strange from the Marvel Universe.
Very soon we will see him again in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’, but before all this furor, Cumberbatch rose to fame and conquered the internet with his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series. Turns out his connection to Arthur Conan Doylethe creator of the detective, does not end here, and this was revealed a few years ago by the portal Ancestry.com.
Distant cousins and a royal ancestor
The website is responsible for researching and analyzing family trees and surnames, and back in 2017 they decided to investigate the past of Benedict Cumberbatch’s family to relate him to the characters he plays on screen.
According to Ancestry.com researchers, Cumberbatch and Conan Doyle have a common ancestor: John of Gaunt., who was one of the sons of King Edward III of England back in the fourteenth century. This connection would make the actor and writer cousins in the sixteenth degree.
This connection has been made as historians have researched records of everything from baptisms, deaths, censuses, property deeds, and even newspaper advertisements.
Thanks to these investigations, Ancestry.com has determined that Cumberbatch is also related to Alan Turing, whom he played in ‘Deciphering the enigma’. Their common ancestor in this case would be John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, which makes them seventeenth cousins on the paternal side.
From the portal they have continued to inquire among the ancestors of Cumberbatch, who would also be related to Richard III, whom he played in ‘The Hollow Crown’. While the actor has once said that being related to Turing is quite an honour, being a 16th cousin to the former King of England strikes him as a “close enough” connection.