Not a living ancestor, no. Life is defined as any organic protein which replicates and reproduces -and- can maintain metabolic homeostasis. There are things in nature which meet some of these requirements, but can't count as life without the last one too.
By this definition, even viruses
are not "alive" despite the fact that they can be killed.
They already have genes and can even evolve,
but they're not living.
Now if some viral strain ever can maintain its own internal chemical balance without requiring a host organism, then we'll see abiogenesis happen. But that event is almost as difficult as the formation of the neucleotides themselves. The rest of it is relatively simple. Some of the intricacies within the cell seem outrageously complex, but a lot of it is just simple chemical reactions or molecular polarity. The membranes even form themselves automatically on contact with water.
If it isn't quite alive yet,
then "survival" shouldnn't be an issue.
And you're going about this all wrong.
If you look hard enough, you're bound to find things science can't answer. 
And right now you're trying to use that to throw away things science has already answered. The point is, that
science offers a method of how to find out what the answers really are, and how to know if they're the correct ones.
(Like making up definitions like the one above?) Religion doesn't do either one. Religion tells you to shut up and believe what they tell you to believe. Religion assumes its own conclusion and refuses to test it. It can't answer anything, and all it can do is to say,
"Gee, I don't know how anything works or why anything is as it is - therefore it must be magic." (but we don't have to make up things to make our theory count) That's why creationism is worthless; that, and the fact that anytime someone says, "
Look it wasn't magic, it was _____ ", then the creationists put on their "armor of God", (which sheilds the mind against reason) so that they never know any better than whatever they wanna still believe.
(how little you know about it)
I'm not avoiding anything.
How genes formed isn't yet well understood.
But the subsequent evolution of life is an entirely
different process which as well proven as ever need be in any court of law, and is infinitely more interesting than the origin of life anyway. (and we know everything decided in a court of law is ALWAYS right, don't we?)
Think about it. If they announce tomorrow that some biotech corporation has finally figured out the right combination of chemicals, pressures, temperatures, radiation and perifrial circumstances required for RNA cells to form naturally, and these conditions are consistent with what we could expect from a partially-molten and still-forming earth, then what would that mean to you?
It will never happen! So don't bet the house on it!
And when is it EVER permissible to say,
"I don't yet know enough to figger it out, so it must be magic."? You're words not Creationists.
No one dares define the term, "kind", largely because it wouldn't do the creationists any good if they did. Because there are many different "kinds" of cattle, and birds are a "kind" of dinosaur, and humans are a "kind" of ape, and there's no way around any of that.
Kind = what ever kind we are talking about. An ape produces apes. Birds produce birds. Cows produce cows. Humans produce humans. ETC ETC ETC How's that for you? You shouldn't have dared me. I couldn't resist.
And because of the amount of horozontal gene transfer going on just prior to when life began to evolve on its own, the closest you'll find to any "original kind" is the superkingdom/clade, Eukarya.
What a nice little fairytale "in the superkingdom of clade the baby Eukarya was formed but was not alive yet. All the kingdom celebrated for they knew all their hopes and dreams hung here on this...this...alive/dead imagination. How sweet.
That's as close as you'll ever likely get to any "single" common ancestor too.
Because once these life-forms finally qualified as "alive" and were finally "evolving" according to the processes of genetic inheritence, then eukaryotes wouldn't technically have been descended from, or in fact "related to" the other "superkingdoms" of life. (huh???) So technically, there really isn't a single common ancestor for all life, even if there is one for all us eukaryotes.
(Oh please don't tell all those in the kingdom of clade...it will break their hearts....but their probably not alive yet so it's okay)
Do you deny that you're descended from eukaryotes?