US President-elect Joe Biden Has Relatives Living In Nagpur Since 1873

Some of the ''distant relatives in India'' US President-elect Joe Biden spoke of in 2013 and then again in 2015, have been living in Maharashtra's Nagpur city since 1873, they claimed on Tuesday.

Twitter

Joe Biden had famously said at an event in Mumbai in 2013 that he had distant relatives in India, something he reiterated in 2015 too. Turns out that the Bidens -- not the American ones, the Indians -- have been residing in Nagpur since centuries.

Biden had said that after becoming a senator in 1972, he had received a letter from one of the Bidens in India and learned that his "great, great, great, great, great grandfather George Biden" worked in the East India Company. George was a Captain in the East India Trading company and after retirement, decided to settle in India and married an Indian woman.

The letter was written by Nagpur-based Leslie Biden, whose grandchildren stay in Nagpur, and claim their family has been living there since 1873.

AP

Leslie's granddaughter and psychologist Sonia Biden Francis told Business Today that Leslie came to know of Joe Biden while reading the Illustrated Weekly of India issue of March 28-April 4, 1981. Leslie then got in touch with Joe Biden through a letter on April 15, 1981 to which Joe Biden replied in a letter dated May 30, 1981. The duo then discussed the Bidens' genealogy, said Sonia. They apparently discussed a common ancestor John Biden and his wife Anne Beaumont.

Sonia said Leslie Biden was the manager of the Bharat Lodge and Hostel, and Bharat Cafe in the ''orange city'', before he died in 1983.

NBC

The Biden family showed this correspondent letters they claimed were part of the correspondence between Leslie and Joe Biden.

When asked by NDTV if the Nagpur-based Bidens would attend Joe Biden's inauguration in January, the family members said they are extending their best wishes to the 77-year-old Biden.

Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange on July 24, 2013, Biden had said, "It's an honour to be back in India and to be here in Mumbai. 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 one of the first letters I received and I regret I never followed up on it.

AFP

"Maybe, some genealogist in 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," Biden had told the Mumbai audience seven years ago. Biden had also said someone provided him with the details including the phone numbers of the Bidens in Mumbai.