Surnames are heritable through the male line only. Genes are heritable through both parents. Wealth is some societies is heritable mostly through the male line, and in other societies through both lines.
Assuming that in the ~584 odd years from the study to the present day that 20 generations passed (average of 30 years per generation), the specific great-great-grandparent who passed on that name has roughly a 0.5^30 on that person (which is an infinitesimally small number).
However, rich people usually marry rich people. It's likely these results aren't just direct inheritance, or direct genetics, but it shows stratification within Italian society.
* To get contracts regardless of ones qualifications. I've read that Aristocrats ensure their kids have ivy league degrees to maintain a illusion of fairness.
There's an article I read here on HN that says, Ivy league schools are successful because they select applicants who would be successful without them.
I would posit the other question, how could they not?
Propensity to lying, cheating, saving, nepotism, length of life, fecundity, access to healthcare, intelligence, math ability and so many more factors are easily inheritable.
Yeah. Even if they were genetically dispossessed to have higher IQs, better health and extreme motivation it should have been pretty genetically diluted after 600 years.
Assortative mating can help maintain or increase any endowment. Think of that as being a within-family/smaller-scale version of the existing genetic gradient by SES (eg "The Genetics of Success: How Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated With Educational Attainment Relate to Life-Course Development" https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2016-belsky.... , Belsky et al 2016; "Genetic analysis of social-class mobility in five longitudinal studies" http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/03/1801238115 , Belsky et al 2018a.)
Assuming that in the ~584 odd years from the study to the present day that 20 generations passed (average of 30 years per generation), the specific great-great-grandparent who passed on that name has roughly a 0.5^30 on that person (which is an infinitesimally small number).
However, rich people usually marry rich people. It's likely these results aren't just direct inheritance, or direct genetics, but it shows stratification within Italian society.