Over the past few years, much has been written in the press about Benedict Cumberbatch’s notable kinship to author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing given the actor’s roles in the television series Sherlock and the movie The Imitation Game. Others have written about the Cumberbatch family’s notorious connection to slavery through their sugar plantations in Barbados. However, his American ancestors seem to have gone unnoticed, including a descent from Mayflower passenger John Alden.

So how does the British actor have American ancestors?

Sons of the American Revolution

In May of 1960, Robert Cecil Cumberbatch, brother of Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandfather Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, filed an application for membership with the U.S. genealogical society Sons of the American Revolution. The application reveals that Robert’s grandmother (Benedict’s 2nd great-grandmother) was Ida Josephine Langdon who was born in Boston but lived and died in Smyrna, Turkey.^[1] Ida’s grandfather was a Boston merchant named John Walley Langdon.

John Walley Langdon, along with his younger brother Thomas Walley Langdon, are said to have been among the first Americans to begin trading with Smyrna. In 1820, John’s son Joseph moved to Smyrna to act as agent for his father and uncle. A couple of years later he married a local girl named Louisa Christine Gout. In 1837, their daughter Ida was born in Boston. Her father Joseph Langdon would die in Smyrna in 1870.

Ida Josephine Langdon married Thomas Bowen Rees, a native of Wales, who operated a shipping line out of Smyrna known as T. Bowen Rees & Co. Their daughter Helene Gertrude Rees (Benedict’s great-grandmother) would marry the British Consul General to Turkey, Henry Alfred Cumberbatch in Smyrna.^[2]

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Mayflower Descent

John Walley Langdon, grandfather of Ida Josephine Langdon, was the son of John Langdon and Mary Walley of Boston. Mary Walley was a granddaughter of Mary (Alden) Kneeland, who was herself a great-granddaughter of Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins.

Benedict Cumberbatch is known for playing roles that touch upon his personal family history. With the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony just a few years away, perhaps a new movie about the Pilgrims might feature Benedict Cumberbatch as the legendary John Alden.

List of Sources

England & Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008, FamilySearch.org (Online Database).

England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2005, Ancestry.com (Online Database).

England & Wales Death Registration Index, 1837-2007, FamilySearch.org (Online Database).

England & Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005, FamilySearch.org (Online Database).

England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, FamilySearch.org (Online Database).

Marshall, George W., Collections for a Genealogical Account of the Family of Comberbach, London: n.p. (1866), p. 39, Internet Archive (Digital Library).

New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (New England Historic and Genealogical Society), 1876, Vol. 30, pp. 36-37.

Riedlmayer, András, “A Boston merchant-adventurer and his illustrated souvenir of the Smyrna trade, ca. 1838,” Harvard College Fine Arts Library Collections, (accessed 07/05/2017).

U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, SAR #85245, Membership application for Robert Cecil Cumberbatch, Ancestry.com (Online Database)

Williams, Alicia Crane, ed., Mayflower Families through Five Generations: Vol. 16, Part 1, Family of John Alden, Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants (1999), pp. 20, 27-37, 94-96, 322-324.

Williams, Alicia Crane, ed., Mayflower Families through Five Generations: Vol. 16, Part 3, Family of John Alden, Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants (2004), p. 37-39.

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Benedict Cumberbatch photo by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)