London, Oct 10 - Genealogy experts have discovered that good friends actor-director Ben Affleck and Hollywood star Matt Damon are 10th cousins.

The actors are childhood friends from the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, and found fame together starring alongside each other in a number of movies, and winning an Oscar each for their 1997 screenplay "Good Will Hunting".

New research from the New England Historic Genealogical Society has delved back through their ancestry and uncovered a common 10th great-grandfather, William Knowlton, a bricklayer who hailed from 17th century Ipswich, England, reported contactmusic. com.