You Have Died (choosing a heir)
When you log on and receive the discomforting message "you have died," it merely means that your game character has died. This is usually, but not always, from natural causes over a reset. You are then given the option of choosing a new character, your heir, from among your family members. Normally, you would pick your oldest male child, but you may select any family member.
If you have no immediate family available, you are out of the game. When a family line dies out like this, the current real world player may reenter the game and take a new position from those that are available. The old position will have a cousin generated and then reenter the pool of available positions. If your family line dies out you will not have a chance at all of getting your previous family. The game keeps track of who the last player was to have that player and will not reissue it to the same player.