Does Biden have relatives in India?

Attempts to hunt down the president-elect’s India connection began with a 2013 comment he made in Mumbai, and have since seen a family in Maharashtra caught in a media feeding frenzy, as Stuti Mishra reports from Delhi

Bidens of India and abroad gathered together for a family wedding in Nagpur in 2018 (Biden Family)

With Kamala Harris poised to become the first Indian-American in history to enter the White House, the results of the US presidential election were already being closely followed among South Asian communities.

Now those celebrating the link between India and the US may be able to do one better – if it turns out that the president-elect Joe Biden himself has ancestral ties to the subcontinent.

The outgoing president Donald Trump may have cultivated warm relations with his “good friend” India’s Narendra Modi, but in a nation that is obsessed with extended families and the exploits of Indians abroad, nothing eases the way to better ties more smoothly than blood.

Better known for his family ties to Ireland, it was Mr Biden himself who first brought attention to the possibility that he might have relatives in India as well.

During a visit to Mumbai in 2013, the then-vice president said in a speech that he once received a letter from India from a man named Leslie Biden, claiming to be a possible relation.

Leslie Biden (back left) along with his brother Arthur and his family in Surrey (Biden Family)

“It's an honour to be back in India and to be here in Mumbai,” he told the audience. “Off script for a second here, I was reminded I was elected to the United States Senate when I was a 29-year-old kid back in 1972, and [that was] one of the first letters I received... I regret I never followed up on it.

“Maybe, some genealogist in the audience can follow up for me, but I received a letter from a gentleman named Biden – Biden, my name – from Mumbai, asserting that we were related.”

Clearly, those comments started people digging. At a later event in 2015 in Washington, the vice president revealed a further tidbit of information.

Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the India-US nuclear deal, he said that his “great, great, great, great, great grandfather” lived in India during the British era and some of his descendants remain there, adding: “There are five Bidens in Mumbai, India.”

The Independent could not trace any Bidens to Mumbai – but a family by that name living in Nagpur, another city in Maharashtra state, say they have been inundated with interview requests and visits from reporters since revealing that Leslie Biden is indeed their late grandfather.

Leslie and his wife Genevieve (Biden Family)

Sonia Biden Francis, a psychologist and Leslie’s granddaughter, told Indian media outlets that according to family lore, Leslie became aware of Joe Biden while reading the long since defunct news magazine Illustrated Weekly of India in 1981.

Leslie wrote to Joe in April, and received a reply on 30 May 1981, in which the pair discussed their possible shared genealogy and promised to stay in touch. The family still have the letters, though that ended up being the extent of their shared penmanship. Leslie died in 1983.

The Bidens of Nagpur say they can trace their ancestry back to John Biden, an Irish immigrant to India who married an Indian, Anne Beaumont. Their son Christopher – one of eight children – was Leslie’s great-grandfather.

They don’t know for certain whether John Biden is also related to Joe – and after their experience of the past four months since the latter became the Democratic presidential nominee, they say they no longer care.

The Indian branch of the Biden family tree goes back to the late 19th century (The Independent)

“Leslie and Joe Biden thanked each other for corresponding and committed to continue corresponding with each other. However, Leslie Biden’s health worsened and he died in 1983 in Nagpur. Leslie’s wife was unable to pursue the family tree further,” CNBC TV18 quoted Rowena, another of Leslie’s granddaughter who lives in Nagpur too.

While the family spoke to the media of their own will initially, they say they were completely unprepared for what was to follow. Since they were named in the national media, they have become the centre of a media frenzy, with reporters trespassing on their property and calling at all hours.

Family ancestors Charles Horatio and Edith Biden (Biden Family)

“Day in, day out, the same thing is happening, and we are done with it,” Sonia Biden tells The Independent. “We, the family and extended family, have decided not to go further. There are so many calls we are getting from the reporters. As of now, we have decided to not pursue it, in fact, we never pursued it, the reporters pursued us.”

The Bidens are particularly concerned about coverage that mentions their family and the reviled British colonial-era East India Company in the same breath when discussing the family history, and say many reporters “haven’t put the facts right”.

Part of the reason for the conflation of the two histories is due to a plaque in India commemorating the 19th-century British ship captain Christopher Biden.

It has become a popular selfie spot around the US election, and is located in the southeastern city of Chennai, the city where much has been made of the roots of vice president-elect Harris’s mother.

The Bishop of Madras, Reverend J George Stephen, told the AFP news agency that researchers are aware of “two Bidens – William and Christopher – who were brothers and became captains of the East India Company on merchant ships in the 19th century”.

“While William Biden died at an early age, Christopher Biden went on to captain several ships, and eventually settled down in Madras,” the bishop said. The pair are not related to the Nagpur Bidens, however, and their modern-day ancestors have not been traced.

Genealogists say that it would be possible to confirm whether or not the Bidens in India and the next president of the US are related, even though their shared history dates back to centuries ago.

But without a detailed family history on Joe Biden’s side, the only way to do this would be through a DNA test. “If somebody wants to trace paternal lineage, even after several generations, [yes] that can be done,” says Kumarasamy Thangaraj, director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad.

Given the future that awaits Mr Biden from 20 January, it seems unlikely he would submit a DNA sample to be tested.

And it’s not exactly something that the Nagpur Bidens are clamouring for, either, says Sonia’s brother Ian Biden, a 44-year-old former seafarer in the merchant navy.

“We don’t want to [be] in the limelight. We [already] know our history through John Biden,” he says.

“We don’t want two seconds of fame in a newspaper or tabloid. We said what we had to say, Mr Joe Biden is a bigger man right now, he has said what he had to say. We have nothing to add.”