Who were the ancestors of the ancient Israelites?

Answer 1

The Jewish people are descendants of Abraham, whose Semitic ancestors lived in the Fertile Crescent and who lived most of his life in the Middle Eastern country of Israel (Canaan) 3800 years ago. http://judaism.answers.com/jewish-history/a-biography-of-abraham

Abraham is called a Hebrew (Genesis ch.14); and the Hebrews were a Western Semitic group.
Abraham gave birth to Isaac and Isaac gave birth to Jacob. Jacob was later renamed Israel (Genesis ch.35), which is why we're called Israelites. There were 12 sons of Israel, who formed the 12 tribes. The Israelites worshiped One God. One thousand years after Jacob, ten of the tribes were exiled to points unknown. The only complete tribes left were Judah and Benjamin; and modern Jews are mostly descendants of Judah (hence the word "Jew"). Even now, through DNA analysis, Jewish communities worldwide have been shown to come from a common Middle Eastern Semitic ancestry.
Today, "Judaism" and "Jewish" refer to all members of the tribes of Israel.http://judaism.answers.com/jewish-history/timeline-of-jewish-history

Answer 2

Biblical tradition says that the ancient Israelites were descendants of Abraham, who came out of Ur to live in the land of the Canaanites. Later, the people were enslaved in Egypt, before being led out of Egypt by Moses. They conquered Canaan under the great military leader, Joshua. The strong consensus of scholars is that the biblical Abraham never lived, and that there was no Exodus from Egypt, as described in The Bible. Instead, the Hebrew people were rural Canaanites, who migrated from the region of the rich coastal cities, to peacefully establish settlements in the hitherto sparsely populated hinterland. Archaeologists say that Judah, in the southern hinterland, was settled later than the more fertile northern regions, and always maintained their own different culture and a distinct dialect of the Hebrew language, which is actually derived from the Canaanite language. Centuries later, traditions developed of a glorious past in which Abraham, a wandering herdsman, talked on equal terms with pharaohs and kings, and the later conquest of the Canaanite cities.

Answer 3

The descendents of Jacob. At least according to the Bible.

Answer 4

They were a Semitic people, as were the Phoenicians Egyptians recorded them as tribes of bandits and herdsmen who lived in the Judean hills.