You can drag your other characters onto it, and "link" them to your "main" to define certain "relationships" between them. So if your "main" is a Republic character, you could put another Republic character on as your main's spouse, then another one (or two) as a child. And you could add Sith character as your main's (or your child's or your spouse's) "Rival", and another Empire character as the Sith's "Ally", and so on.

If you're a serious RP'er, and want to have some kind of "logic" behind how all your characters manage to be in the same Legacy, and share the same name, despite their different Factions, Classes, species, and so on, it's somewhat useful, and even slightly entertaining, I suppose.

But nothing you do in that "Family Tree" window has any impact whatsoever on anything else in the game.

I dragged the portrait of my first character on it, but I don't see what else to do. Whats the family tree even do?

I think it is part of something that they had intentions to develop but it got forgotten along the way, basicly as the legacy system.

It is a cool thing for those that roleplay and have different strongholds for different characters but in reality it does not do anything at all except show connections between the characters.

Ah ok thanks guys. I thought I was doing something wrong when nothing happened.

Nope. You didn't do anything wrong. This family tree just does nothing for you. I even find it a bit tedious to use. One character can only have so many links (I think two) before you have to chose another character to be the link to someone else.

In other words, your grizzly old BH can't be a father to 6 kids. Or have three spouses. Or be best friends to 4 imperials.

And I don't think they have done anything with this system since it was introduced to the game. I find it odd we can select an alt to be a spouse, but in the game the spouse is one of our companions. The game should have taken that into consideration but doesn't.

Nope. You didn't do anything wrong. This family tree just does nothing for you. I even find it a bit tedious to use. One character can only have so many links (I think two) before you have to chose another character to be the link to someone else.

 

In other words, your grizzly old BH can't be a father to 6 kids. Or have three spouses. Or be best friends to 4 imperials.

 

And I don't think they have done anything with this system since it was introduced to the game. I find it odd we can select an alt to be a spouse, but in the game the spouse is one of our companions. The game should have taken that into consideration but doesn't.

Two sideways links, with only one allowed to be "spouse". One link "up" to a parent. Some number (I think it's more than two) "down" to children, and then you get creative with sibling links to have a huge family. I thought the spouse thing was a bit odd, myself.

Some number (I think it's more than two) "down" to children

I believe you can only have 3 lines across or down. I was going to make each side's 4 characters into sisters and couldn't do it.

I'd check but I'm on my third verify run after the update and can't log in yet.

Ah ok thanks guys. I thought I was doing something wrong when nothing happened.

There is not that much do to actually, it is a cosmetic connection between characters.

I used to connect the characters for fun but nowdays I do not touch the family tree. It is good for one thing and you do not have to connect the characters for it, that is if you want to mail something to a alt and you are not sure who the alt is then you can check in the list instead of logging out.