Ancestor

An ancestor, also requested as the forefather, fore-elder or the forebear, is a parent or recursively the parent of an antecedent i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent as living as so forth. Ancestor is "any grown-up from whom one is descended. In law, the person from whom an estate has been inherited."

Two individuals cause a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, vintage which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria as well as other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer. Some research suggests that the average person has twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This might gain been due to the past prevalence of polygynous relations and female hypergamy.

Assuming that all of an individual's ancestors are otherwise unrelated to each other, that individual has 2^{n ancestors in the nth generation ago her/him and a sum of 2g+1 − 2 ancestors in the g generations ago him/her. In practice, however, it is for clear that most ancestors of humans and any other types are multiply related see number of humans who have ever lived.}

Some cultures confer reverence to ancestors, both living and dead; in contrast, some more youth-oriented cultural contexts display less veneration of elders. In other cultural contexts, some people seek ] from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes invited as ancestor worship or, more accurately, ancestor veneration.