My current charrie, Anna Greingoth (which is also my first charrie EVER) used to be the relative of a canon character. I started her out as the daughter of Rose Weasley (obviously canon) and Alexander Greingoth (a charrie I made up). Her grandparents, of course, were Ron and Hermione. It was helpful at first, because I felt a little overwhelmed my first few visits here, and I guess I felt a little more comfortable role-playing on "familiar grounds" rather than starting from scratch.

However...

I started to not really like the canon connection after a while. Don't get me wrong, I loved (and still do) all the wonderful family members that my charrie ended up having. What really started making me change my mind about having a canon charrie was that the Weasley family seems to be SO popular here as far as having them related to your charrie, and I could slowly see myself going from having one or two cousins to six, seven...fifteen, and so on. I was also role-playing my charrie as an only child, so then I got to thinking about what would happen when someone joined and ended up being my sister or brother. Then what would happen when I ended up with not only fifteen cousins, but fifteen or so siblings? See the dilemna now?

So I did a quick change-a-roo and had my mother and father divorce and my father remarry. I now consider my charrie the child of Alexander Greingoth and Bella Snape Greingoth (Bella isn't related to Severus. I just stole his last name. lol) Anna now lives with those two.

However...(again, lol)

This isn't to discourage anyone from playing a canon charrie's relative. To each his or her own, and it doesn't bother me one bit to roleplay with someone who chooses to do so. I just wanted to provide a little different of a perspective from someone who has played that role and didn't like it in the longrun.

I feel like I've stepped on a soapbox, but I'd also like to really address this question. The problem with the answer to this question lies within the fact that, to some extent, character-control would have to be put into place. SS is great about letting role-players freely choose their charrie/charrie's roleplay; however, if you really want to help control the canon situation, I do have one solution.

As far as my experience with the Weasley relation, I felt that a bulk of the problem lied with newbies coming in as canon relatives. That's when you get the whole awkward, "Are you my long lost sister/brother/cousin?" (To be fair, though, I have to lump myself in that category, as well, as I did that very same thing.) Maybe it would help to put a rule in place for newbies only. The rule would restrict playing a canon relative until you have been on the site long enough to role play one term or just be present for the duration of one term (as some don't role play). What this would do is give the new member time to see who plays what and maybe have some time to decide whether they actually want to go through with playing a canon relative or not. I know I, for one, would have changed my mind when I saw how many Weasley relatives were actually already in place on the site. There was this whole, "Arent you my sister? No, I'm actually your cousin." awkward roleplay conversation at the beginning of last term. Once again, though, I don't feel this way because of the people or characters themselves, but because I really ending up seeing a problem with having TOO MANY relatives. With the rule I stated above, after that first term, newbies (or non-newbies by that time) would be free to play whatever character they choose.

Like I said, though, if that was enforced, there would have to be some character control. Not quite sure if you would want to go that route, but if you do in fact see it as a problem, it would at least help a little.