Tracing the ancestry of galaxies (on the land of our ancestors) : proceedings of the 277th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union held in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso December 13 17 2010 We are living in the golden era of multiwavelength astronomical observations probing deep areas of the sky. Sophisticated instruments allow us to compare galaxies at high redshifts when the Universe was only a few hundred millions years old with the mature nearby galaxies we see today. This is yielding new insights into the mass assembly and the star formation history of galaxies that may or may not be compatible with our current theoretical models. IAU Symposium 277 addresses the major open questions concerning the evolution of galaxies specifically: can we really apply the knowledge gained from low redshift studies to the high redshift galaxy populations given the strong apparent differences in their observed properties In this volume theorists and observers attempt to reach a common understanding of the puzzles that galaxy research has recently unfolded largely through the study of galaxy dynamics and their stellar populations at low and high redshifts. Back cover