Miami ? A British research firm recently combed 25,000 DNA samples searching for a modern descendant of Genghis Khan from outside the Mongolian warlord’s ancient empire.

They found the first one: a University of Miami accounting professor with a receding hairline.

Tom Robinson, a 48-year-old Palmetto Bay, Fla., resident, has taken the odd news with amiable modesty. In some quarters, he’s being treated like the guy who walks into a store and finds out he’s the millionth customer. The Mongolian ambassador to the United States plans to invite him as an honored guest to his Washington embassy.

They’re an unlikely pair, the emperor and the accountant. Genghis was known as the type of guy who would conquer villages across two continents, murder entire tribes and take thousands of female partners. Robinson, on the other hand, just returned from a cruise to Alaska with his wife of 25 years.