Ancestral
Generally, if something is ancestral it is to do with our ancestors; the people from whom we descended. So, when people talk about an ‘ancestral home’ they refer to the place from which your ancestors came. In terms of DNA, ancestral qualities are passed from generation to generation through a family and there are lots of different ancestral attributes which a person can inherit.
For example, certain aspects of your physical appearance may have been inherited from your ancestors such as a particular body type or a style of nose or chin. There are lots of other attributes which you can also get from your ancestors, too, such as immunities to certain diseases, predispositions to other health issues and qualities which affect your mental and physical health.
DNA ancestry testing allows someone to analyse some of the attributes which they may have picked up from their ancestors, with some tests even providing detailed percentages of different ethnicities. It can also be a practical way to learn more about your own genetic background and find out more, genealogically, about family members who lived too long ago for them to be researched any other way.
Some genealogical tests and specialist software can determine where your ancestors came from based on your genetic code and also offer information about the history of those races. Stories have also hit the press regarding opportunist people that are taking DNA ancestry tests in order to prove that they have entitlements. These range from financial aid normally offered to minority groups right through to attempts to prove that they have inheritance rights based on their DNA ancestry.
