Everyone alive today is descended from a long line of people who did reproduce themselves.

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Along with hundreds of other people from Patagonia, Mr Austin is descended from Welsh-speakers who emigrated to Argentina in the 19th Century, and who still speak Welsh.

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But the drafters of the first Imperial House Law decided not to allow women to ascend the throne in order to preserve the single line that, according to legend, is descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami.

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The largest Christian population in the Middle East is the Egyptian community of Copts - Christians descended from the ancient Egyptians.

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Mr Bercow hailed the legacy of Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, from whom Commons Leader Sir George Young is descended, for his painstaking work on drafting the 100-year-old act.

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But of course the truth is this story began centuries ago, when horsemen descended to the plains from a lost kingdom called Futa Djallon, long before Europe's map makers turned their minds to the niggling problem of how to fill those blank spaces.

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Africa is the most genetically diverse continent, because that is where humanity evolved (Asians, Europeans, Aboriginal Australians and Amerindians are all descended from a few adventurers who left Africa about 60, 000 years ago).

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Descended, he thinks, from a line of doctors and mathematicians in Leipzig, he is the son of a Saxon father and a Puerto Rican mother.

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