Structural inheritance (SI) is a phenomenon in which the newly formed austenite retains the prior austenite grain size, shape, and orientation of the previous martensitic, bainitic, or even tempered martensitic microstructure. The present work studies SI in 18CrNiMo7–6 steel with 0.08 wt% Nb and compares it with that in a similar but non‐microalloyed steel, 20MnCr5. While a coarse prior austenite grain size (PAGS) and a martensitic, bainitic, or tempered martensitic microstructure are found to be the pre‐requisites for the manifestation of SI, heating rate, tempering, and steel composition equally influence its occurrence. The larger the PAGS, the easier is the production of SI. SI occurs with the greatest ease in a martensitic microstructure. Tempering is found to retard SI. The ease of occurrence of SI is this: as‐quenched martensite>bainite>tempered martensite. The effect of heating rate is non‐monotonic, in that, SI is more likely on very slow (0.05 °C s−1) or very fast heating (50 °C s−1; 100 °C s−1) compared with intermediate heating rates (0.5 °C s−1; 5 °C s−1). Nb increases the tendency for SI, but a steel without Nb can also exhibit SI.