ascendants

ASCENDANTS. Those from whom a person is descended, or from whom he derives
his birth, however remote they may be.
     2. Every one has two ascendants at the first degree, his father and
mother; four at the second degree, his paternal grandfather and grandmother,
and his maternal grandfather and grandmother; eight at the third. Thus in
going up we ascend by various lines which fork at every generation. By this
progress sixteen ascendants are found at the fourth degree; thirty-two, at
the fifth sixty-four, at the sixth; one hundred and twenty-eight at the
seventh, and so on; by this progressive increase, a person has at the
twenty-fifth generation, thirty-three millions five hundred and fifty-four
thousand, four hundred and thirty-two ascendant's. But as many of the
ascendants of a person have descended from the same ancestor, the lines
which were forked, reunite to the first common ancestor, from whom the
other descends; and this multiplication thus frequently interrupted by the
common ancestors, may be reduced to a few persons. Vide Line.