An ancestor or forebear is a parent or the parent of an ancestor (i.e. , a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth). Ancestor is “any person from whom one is descended. In law the person from whom an estate has been inherited. ” 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 which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent.
