Q 01/05

The word pedigree comes from an old French phrase for the foot of which bird, echoing a chart's branching lines?

A) Heron

B) Stork

C) Crane

D) Goose

Answer · why

C) Crane

Crane is the bird in pé de grue, the Anglo-Norman phrase that English speakers wore down into pedigree. The forked lines joining parents and children ...

Q 02/05

Which conqueror's male-line DNA is carried by about 16 million men across Asia, a 2003 genetic study suggested?

A) Genghis Khan

B) Attila the Hun

C) Julius Caesar

D) Tamerlane

Answer · why

A) Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan was the study's suggested founder of a lineage found in about 8% of men from northeast China to Uzbekistan. Later ancient-DNA research ha...

Q 03/05

Which Oscar-winning actor is a distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln through the family of the president's mother, Nancy?

A) Sean Penn

B) Jeff Bridges

C) Kevin Costner

D) Tom Hanks

Answer · why

D) Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks descends from the same family as Nancy Hanks, the mother of the sixteenth president. The actor is also a distant relative of children's tele...

Q 04/05

Which English king's skeleton, dug up beneath a Leicester car park in 2012, was confirmed by DNA from living relatives?

A) Henry VI

B) Richard III

C) Edward V

D) Harold Godwinson

Answer · why

B) Richard III

Richard III was confirmed when mitochondrial DNA from the bones matched two descendants of his sister Anne of York, 17 and 19 generations on. He was t...

Q 05/05

Which naturalist married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood and feared inbreeding had harmed their children's health?

A) Alfred Wallace

B) Francis Galton

C) Charles Darwin

D) Joseph Hooker

Answer · why

C) Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin and Emma were both grandchildren of the potter Josiah Wedgwood. The couple had ten children, and whenever one fell ill he worried that ...