As, by definition, all of our ancestors are dead, we all will eventually “follow” them.

How do you know there was only one starter cell?

For what ever the earliest single celled organisms that supposedly evolved into more complex multicellular organisms, how do you know for sure that the DNA cellular construction didn't happen in different cells being formed with out connection to other cells?

Speaking here for myself, as ONLY anyone of us Truly can, I tend to think that the adage of " Following your Ancestors" means/relates to " taking note and listening to the Instinctive Moral and Ethical codes that have passed down from Generation to Generation" when it comes down to Humans in particular.
Since, imo, the MAIN Driving Force/Impetus behind Human kind has ALWAYS been to ENSURE the survival of EACH generation by nurturing and protecting each other as either a Family Group, Clan, Tribe, Community or what ever else it may be.

The question is why follow anyone? I trace my own path and forge my own destiny.

Michael Shermer reported an interesting tidbit in his book "How We Believe". While children are taught the beliefs of their parents, they tend to adopt or change these beliefs in relation to how the offspring related to the parents personally and how they judged the parents relationship to be. Those who judged their parents relationship to be unsatisfactory where more likely to change their personal religious beliefs. It's as if the child would look for a different belief system in hope of creating a better personal life for themselve.

To your point about how far back we should look to "Follow your ancestors", I have come to believe that DNA and fetal development tends to function in a way that makes a certain amount of tnis inevitable. Experiment with foxes in Russia to make raising them for the fur trade less hazzardous demonstrated that the disposition and acceptance of human contact was a trait that can be selectively bred into them. We would need to understand that the same sort of inherited behavioral traits would very likely exist within humans as well. They would be something existing somehow in our DNA.

In one sense, we all follow our ancestors don’t we. Otherwise they at contemporaries or descendants.....

Most of us do follow our ancestors in a much closer link than you are listing. This is exactly why we have so many religious people. They conclude that their religion was good enough for the parents, grandparents, and great great grandparents so it has to be good enough for them also. To deviate from this in any way is to disrespect the ancestors and nobody wants to believe they lived "holy lives" when there was never any reward for doing so. IMHO this is why people stay in church. It's a club with a sense of belonging.

love it!

us homo sapians as we are have only been around for a couple hundred thousand years

99.9 % of species are extinct

us homo's rule the world!

When I hear 'follow your ancestors' I think of my great great grandparents not the missing link.