Ancestral means belonging to the family members who came before. The ancestral home, ancestral lands, ancestral memory.
It is used of property, of land and, more loosely, of anything inherited from the deep past. In biology it means belonging to an earlier form from which later ones descend: the ancestral species. Ancestral home is the fixed phrase and is used only half seriously about most families. Note ancestor, ancestry; and that the Latin means one who goes before.
1adjectiveancestralBelonging to the family members who came before.
“He returned to his ancestral village in Ireland to find his grandfather's grave.”
2adjectiveearlierBelonging to an earlier form, in biology.
“Scientists believe the ancestral horse was a small forest animal the size of a dog.”
ancestral is a quality of descent.
Anglo-Norman ancestrel comes from ancestre, from Latin antecessor, one who goes before — ante plus cedere, to go. Predecessor and concede come from the same going.
Anglo-Norman
ancestrel
English, today
ancestral
Built from
From Anglo-Norman ancestrel, from ancestre (“ancestor”), equivalent to ancestor + -al.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA