To be fair and more accurate, the family had two options to choose from. No one forced them to become vassals of the Black Bones sect.
They could have choosen to either give up their position as a cultivation family and the responsibilities that came with it, such as protecting the secret realm and its environs, or they could continue to do their work under a different master.
It is clear that they chose the latter. This makes them a cultivation family that saw the fall of the Jade Cauldron sect and the rise of the Sword Way sect. So despite being a family, they are older than the Sword Say sect.
They are older than the Sword Way sect, but they are orders of magnitude weaker than the Sword Way sect. However, as an ancient family, they are older and also stronger than the Dyson family.
The difference in strength between the Wade family and the Dyson family was evident in the number of people at the second mortal coil that they brought to harvest the secret realm.
