Great link in your answer, @LCD3. In addition, I'm going to cover some things about the continuing evolution of the Milky Way:
The Milky Way is currently merging with one or more of its satellite galaxies (I say "one or more" because several objects in its vicinity, such as the Virgo Stellar Stream, may or may not be galaxies). The major merger is with the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, which undergoing a 100 million year+ merger with the Milky Way. It sill eventually be completely torn apart, and become part of the Milky Way.
There is also evidence that this has happened in the past (see this paper) and it could happen in the future. The Milky Way has a lot of satellite galaxies, and even though they are far away, closer satellite galaxies could have been consumed in the past. The eventual merger with Andromeda will also add to the Milky Way's growth, as the two become a new galaxy.
Other sources:
List of Milky Way satellite galaxies
Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
Note: I am looking for more non-Wikipedia sources, and I will update this answer as soon as I can.
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