Legal Term: ANCESTOR

Definition: descents. One who has preceded another in a direct line of descent, an ascendant. In the common law, the word is understood as well of the immediate parents, as, of these that are higher, as may appear by the statute 25 Ed. III. De natis ultra mare, and so in the statute of 6 R. III. cap. 6, and by many others. But the civilians relations in the ascending line, up to the great grandfather"s parents, and those above them, they term, majores, which common lawyers aptly expound antecessors or ancestors, for in the descendants of like degree they are called posteriores. Cary"s Litt.45. The term ancestor is applied to natural persons. The words predecessors and successors, are used in respect to the persons composing a body corporate. See 2 Bl. Com. 209, Bac. Abr. h. t., Ayl. Pand. 58.

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