The mayor of New York Bill de Blasio recently appointed two new commissioners for the department of citywide administrative services, and one of their names is Stacey Cumberbatch, which does not sound too common. During her speech, she claimed rather a striking link to a British actor who plays a plantation owner in a 2013 British-American historical drama film, 12 Years a Slave.

The NYC commissioner, who is the proud granddaughter of Caribbean immigrants, said her distinctive surname actually comes from the fifth great-grandfather of the Sherlock actor, Benedict Cumberbatch. Abraham Cumberbatch owned slaves, as well as a Barbados sugar plantation in the 18th century, when it was common for slaves to take the surnames of their owners.

Benedict Cumberbatch himself stars as a plantation owner in 12 Years A Slave, which has been nominated for several Academy Awards, and he has discussed his family's ties to slavery several times. In a previous interview ahead of the release of Amazing Grace, in which he plays anti-slavery campaigner Pitt the Younger, he called the film "a sort of apology" for the acts of his ancestors.

The actor also revealed that his mother Wanda Veltham, who also played his mother in Sherlock, had warned him not to use his real family name for his career to prevent repatriation lawsuits from descendents of slaves.

Stacey Cumberbatch was born in the New York borough of Queens, where 48 percent of residents are born in foreign countries. She graduated as a lawyer and has spent her career in city and state government. Cumberbatch shared her Caribbean roots with Bill de Blasio's wife, leading the mayor to say that it "has driven her to excellence."