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If your ancestors were members of the upper class, chances are you will be - even centuries after they've died. 

Researchers have found that a person's surname is a strong indicator of social status, going back multiple generations, and a status from years ago can still exert its influence on a person's life today.

In fact, the study found that social status is more consistently passed down among families over hundreds of years, than height.

The researchers analysed the surnames of students who attended Oxford (pictured) and Cambridge universities between 1170 and 2012 and rich property owners between 1236 and 1299. They found that a person's surname is a strong indicator of social status, going back multiple generations

These results have been published by Gregory Clark from the University of California, Davis and Neil Cummins from the London School of Economics in the journal Human Nature.  

They used the Oxbridge attendance of people with rare English surnames to track social mobility from 1170 to 2012.

They discovered that social mobility in England has always been slow, and today it is not much greater than it was in pre-industrial times.

Social status is generally seen as a ranking of families across a variety of statuses including education, income, wealth, occupation, and health.

Mr Clark and Mr Cummings used databases to calculate the social trajectory of families with rare English surnames over the past 28 generations.

For this purpose, they analysed the surnames of students who attended Oxford and Cambridge universities between 1170 and 2012, rich property owners between 1236 and 1299, as well as the national probate registry since 1858. 

Rare surnames included Atthill, Bunduck, Balfour, Bramston, Cheslyn, and Conyngham. 

They found that social status is consistently passed down among families over multiple generations.   

'Strong forces of familial culture, social connections, and genetics must connect the generations,' said Mr Clark.

'Even more remarkable is the lack of a sign of any decline in status persistence across major institutional changes, such as the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, the spread of universal schooling in the late nineteenth century, or the rise of the social democratic state in the twentieth century,' added Mr Cummins.

'Status persistence measured by education status is just as strong now as in the pre-industrial era.' 

They said their findings show there 'really are quasi-physical "Laws of Inheritance."'  

This chart plots the relative frequency of the selected surnames compared to their educational status. This is plotted against the general population and the elite groups in two different generations. The study found that social status is more consistently passed down among families over hundreds of years, than height