Explain what the sentence means and what useful information it give you about the Usher family

TC 3. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other woods, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.

TC 3. Explain what the sentence means and what useful information it give you about the Usher family