Ancestor
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robot Adding: [[eu:Arbaso]]
{{for|the book|Ancestors: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family}}
An '''ancestor''' is a [[parent]] or ([[Recursion|recursively]]) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a [[grandparent]], [[great-grandparent]], [[Family|great-great-grandparent]], [[Family|great-great-great-grandparent]], [[Family|great-great-great-great-grandparent]], and so forth).
Two individuals have a [[genetics|genetic]] relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In [[evolution]]ary theory, species who share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of [[common descent]]. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some [[Bacterium|bacteria]] and other organisms capable of [[horizontal gene transfer]].
Assuming that all ancestors are unrelated, an individual has 2<sup>''n''</sup> ancestors in the ''n''th generation before him and about 2<sup>''g''+1</sup> 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 (see [[Pedigree collapse]]). Consider ''n'' = 40: the human species is surely more than 40 generations old, yet the number 2<sup>40</sup> dwarfs the [[World population#Number_of_humans_who_have_ever_lived|number of humans that have ever lived]].
As far as contribution to ones autosomal DNA is concerned (this does not include Y-chromosomal DNA or mitochondrial DNA) assuming that none of one's ancestors had children with relatives (even distant relatives), an individual has a total of 2046 ancestors up to the 10th generation, 1024 of which are 10th-generation ancestors. With the same assumption, Any given person has over a million 20th-generation ancestors (generally equivalent to around 500 years) and this theoretical number increases past the total population of the world at around [[1400]] AD.
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''.
==See also==
*[[Genealogy]]
*[[Ancestor worship]]
*[[Cousin]]
*[[Family]]
*[[Family relationship]]
*[[Most recent common ancestor]]
*[[Kinship]]
*[[Ethnicity]]
[[Category:Kinship and descent]]
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