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ancestry

US/ˈæn.sɛs.tɹi/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,713 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: ancestries

Ancestry is the line of family a person comes from. Trace your ancestry, of Irish ancestry, shared ancestry.

Everybody's ancestry doubles each generation back until the numbers exceed the people who ever lived, which means the lines must cross — go back far enough and any two people from a region share ancestors. Commercial testing reports ancestry as percentages, which are estimates against reference populations rather than facts about you.

Definitions of ancestry

  1. 1nounancestryThe line of family a person comes from.B2+

    “She's of Irish ancestry; her great-grandparents came from County Cork.”

ancestry is a family line.

Where it comes from

Old French ancesserie comes from ancestor, from Latin antecessor, one who goes before. Cede and predecessor come from the same going.

  1. Old French

    ancesserie

  2. Middle English

    auncestrie

  3. English, today

    ancestry

From Middle English auncestrie, from Old French ancesserie. See ancestor.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Family & People

Practise this word

ancestry in the wild

  • Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry.

    Mulatto

  • While previous censuses inquired about the "ancestry" of residents, the current form asks people to enter their "origins".

    Race and ethnicity in the United States

  • The "Highlanders," such as the Merina and Betsileo of the central highlands around Antananarivo, Alaotra (Ambatondrazaka) and Fianarantsoa, tend to have more Austronesian ancestry.

    Malagasy peoples

  • In contrast, the "coastal dwellers," including the Sakalava, Bara, Vezo, Betsimisaraka, and Mahafaly, generally have a higher proportion of Bantu ancestry.

    Malagasy peoples

  • The term may also include individuals of mixed-race ancestry who identify with a single group culturally and socially (cf. the one-drop rule).

    Multiracial Americans

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.