Last Christmas I was given an Ancestry DNA kit. The DNA companies (there are a number) send you a little bottle with a plastic funnel that you have to dribble in. Register online, seal the sample and send it away to Ireland where boffins run it through their algorithms and send you (by email, how else!) the results.

When you register your DNA test you’re given the option of putting your results out into cyberspace or keeping stum, probably a wise choice if you’ve populated the planet with illegitimate offspring.

The results were quite quick, about three weeks and although most of my DNA was derived from a Blighty source, disappointingly as much had derived from Sarf of The River, in fact Kent and Surrey.

Now this is where it gets annoying, even if you discount the Old Testament’s assertion that we’re all derived from the same progenitors, our DNA stretches back through countless permutations of couplings.

The results throw up literally thousands of potential relatives from a cousin once removed to an 8th cousin 4 times removed, and it would seem that a distant uncle of mind was on the Mayflower, as I have dozens of distant relatives in the New World. As a result, I’m getting weekly updates of people I don’t know or care to know.