By a continuous degenerate semigroup we mean a strongly continuous mapping
T : R+ --> L(X) having the semigroup property. Thus, T(0) is a projection w
hich may be different from the identity. The main theorem is a Trotter-Kato
type approximation result for such degenerate semigroups. It is used to st
udy convergence of heat semigroups with respect to variable domains.