over several generations is incredibly difficult because it's under threat from being divvied up through inheritance from wealth disputes from expropriation from wars or simply from stupidity most families will have one or all of these happen to them only a handful of families have managed to stay more or less afloat over centuries but those right on top have been switched out again and again when based on time speaks from personal experience his own family's history dates back 900 years I have a horribly long name at least on my