Simplify the following text for a Grade 7 native English-speaking person.
Original: An ancestor is a parent or ( recursively ) the parent of an ancestor ( i.e. , a grandparent , great-grandparent , great-great-grandparent , and so forth ) .
Simplified: An ancestor is a parent , a parent 's parent ( grandparent ) , a parent 's parent 's parent ( or great grandparent ) , and so on .