Ontogeny and Phylogeny

It is generally accepted that Freud subscribes to the proposition that Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny.  Now, according to one interpretation of it, the thesis expresses a parallel between the developments of two entities--an individual, and its species, respectively.  However, upon closer examination of the typical example of the thesis, what gets recapitulated is not the development of the species, the developments of ancestors of the individual, i. e. developments of prior individuals, in which case it is not Phylogeny that is getting recapitulated.  But, the formulation cannot apply to the earliest ancestors, i. e. because they have no precedent to recapitulate.  So, if the meaning of the thesis is anything more than that Ontogeny is identical in all members of a species, it is unclear what it is.  Regardless, fundamentally lacking in the thesis is any definition of the relationship between a Species and its members, and if, as has been proposed here, it is a Whole-Part relationship, that between Phylogeny and Ontogeny is a lot more complicated than is connoted by 'recapitulate'.