Ancestral means belonging to or inherited from your ancestors, the people in your family who lived before you were born. Your great-great-grandparents are your ancestors, and so are all the generations stretching back before them.

When something is ancestral, it connects to those earlier generations. An ancestral home is a house where your grandparents or great-grandparents once lived. Ancestral traditions are customs passed down through your family for generations, like a special recipe your great-grandmother made that your family still cooks every holiday. Some families have ancestral lands, property that has belonged to the family for many generations.

The word carries a sense of deep roots and connection to the past. When scientists talk about ancestral traits, they mean characteristics that came from earlier forms of a species. Your tendency to enjoy certain foods might be an ancestral preference shaped by what your ancestors ate to survive.

Ancestral connects you to the long chain of people who came before you.