Do you know any family dynasties?

[FrancisdeSales]

Rather than families struggling and relationships failing, do you know any families who grow and thrive across the generations? Are they connected by culture, religion or business? Why do you believe they succeed?

Like the Starkadders, do you mean?

There's a Dynasty Chinese Takeaway in Sutton.

Well there are definitely some well known families in my part of the world, this was not meant as a jokey question. Are the only dynasties in the UK by definition wealthy such as the Goldsmiths?

The Windsors? Their business is doing well but I can't vouch for their relationships...

Have you actually looked at the Goldsmiths relationship history OP? I don't believe you would file it under the Successful and Stable category. Rich, yes.

Can you explain what you mean and why you are asking?

The Brend family in Devon has done well from humble beginnings and I think they are all encouraged to work hard and do the best they can down through the generations.
Is that what you mean?

We have some notorious families here. I wouldn't say dynasty though. More criminal!

DS is friends with one of the DC. He is delightful, polite and comes over for a play date every so often.

I do family history, so literally the research of dynasties. Some families are very poor, some very wealthy (surprise surprise, money tends to run in the family).

I can't see anything to suggest happy relationships correlate with wealth/poverty (although obviously poverty creates pressures).

Can you refine your question? Are you using "dynasty" to mean financially successful family?

Eg I can think of a family which started in business in the 1830s, right place right time and the founder very good at what he did.

The business survived over 100 years, into the third generation, making an increasingly comfortable living for members of the family.

They were pillars of the community, heavily involved in church and civil society.

There's just the little matter of the son who was disinherited, and whose orphaned children were taken in by his much poorer wife's family when Disinherited Son and wife died young. And when one of those children herself died leaving small children, her children were packed off to an orphanage - just down the road from their athletic young Edwardian cousins, heroes of the tennis club and Sunday School.

The impoverished side survived WWI intact and those who also survived the poverty-related disease went on to thrive, while the wealthy side lost quite a few in the War and died out completely in the 1950s.

I'm sure that sort of story is repeated endlessly. Clogs to clogs in three generations, as they say.

Acting dynasties? Eg. The Cusacks, Redgraves, Coppolas

I often wonder with the criminal ones at which point the children are introduced to the business side of the family.

Well son we're the biggest coke dealers in the SE. Would you like to be area manager for Essex? Or perhaps henchman takes your fancy?

5th generation criminal dynasties still operating in the sink estate I grew up on in Edinburgh. Just recently the police were on the radio expressing disdain at matters.

It's very common in the professions - grandfather consultant cardiologist, father consultant surgeon, son consultant cardiologist. Plenty in accountancy and law. Also acting dynasties are common.

All the ones I know are united by their job actually.

The Timpsons seem to be pretty remarkable... there was an article on the radio about them recently talking about how many children they had fostered (I think although my memory is pretty bad of late).