Ancestor

From Genealogy

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An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, and so on).

Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species who share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer.

Assuming that all ancestors are unrelated, an individual has 2ⁿ ancestors in the nth generation before him and about 2^g+1 total ancestors in the g generations before him. In practise, however, it's clear that the vast majority of ancestors of humans (and indeed any other species) are somehow related. Consider n = 40: the human species is surely more than 40 generations old, yet the number 2⁴⁰ dwarfs the number of humans that have ever lived.

Some cultures place great reverence on ancestors, both living and dead; contrastingly, people in more youth-oriented cultural contexts may display a lesser degree of veneration for elders. In other cultural contexts, some people seek providence from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes known as ancestor worship or, more accurately, ancestor veneration.

[edit] See also

• Ancestry (United States)
• Genealogy
• Ancestor worship
• Cousin
• Descendant
• Family
• Family relationship
• Most recent common ancestor
• Kinship and descent
• Legendary progenitor

This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Ancestor. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Genealogy wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.