Sentence:  His <WSD>forefathers</WSD> had been, as a rule, professional men&mdash;physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an only brother at Montauk Point having sickened in the trenches before Santiago. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Ancestor.(Wp)