The phrase "a common descent" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing the shared ancestry or origin of a group of people, species, or entities.
Example: "Many species of birds are believed to have a common descent, tracing their lineage back to a few ancestral species."
Alternatives: "a shared ancestry" or "a mutual origin".
All creatures are united in a common existence, a common descent.
In general, a caste is an endogamous hereditary group of families bearing a common name, often claiming a common descent, as a rule professing to follow the same hereditary calling, adhering to the same customs especially regarding purity, meals, and marriages and often further divided into smaller endogamous circles.
The ancient Scottish sennachy, or royal bard, could recite the pedigree of the old Scots kings at the latter's inauguration, and the nobles of Peru, who boasted a common descent with the sovereign, were able to preserve their pedigrees despite the complexity resulting from the practice of polygamy.
For example, organisms that reproduce asexually may nevertheless have a common descent.
Michel Seymour's proposal of a "socio-cultural definition" adds a political dimension to the purely cultural one: a nation is a cultural group, possibly but not necessarily united by a common descent, endowed with civic ties (Seymour 2000).
By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended from Sibyl de Neufmarché, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots.
One of the most fundamental concepts of the theory of evolution since it was developed by Charles Darwin is that species share a common origin —commonality of descent from a single ancestor and have subsequently diverged through time.
This insight supplies the basis for a genetic classification of religions (associating them by descent from a common origin), which Müller believed the most scientific principle possible.
Thus, the idea is that the cultural analog of reproductive skew reduces the effective population size and that as a result, common descent generates substantial variation among large groups.
This is a group with a myth of common descent, divided into ranked senior and junior lineages based on the seniority of older versus younger brother in the group genealogy.
