Reincarnating in the same family?
Well, when looking “beyond” so to say of what happens after death there is no single answer, it all depends on how evolved the soul that leaves after body death is.
As such, the usual souls in the 3D and 4D vibration (D-dimension or chakra scale), and who are in a percentage of about 99% of embodied souls on this planet, come generally in groups for incarnation on a planet to experience typical life-lessons for that vibration of 3D to 4D. To make a parallel, if you take students from 3rd grade for instance, they follow up the same curricula for their class but that doesn’t make them identical, isn’t it? On the other hand, the skills they get in school are in the range of that 3rd grade… The same with souls who are about the same vibration range, they seek life lessons / experiences in the range belonging to their soul vibration.
Within the larger group of such souls there are smaller 3D/4D groups of about tenths of souls who generally split from the same higher soul (parent-soul, God) and obviously have good affinities among them. These tend to reincarnate together in a life provided they have complementary life plans (destinies) … For instance, if they study in a life the “envy” sentiment, some souls get the role of aggressors and some of victims, and they gather/incarnate in the same family/friends circle to play their roles for the envy lesson.
Since this level of vibration (3-4D) is quite low and dualistic, an average soul needs like in tenths and even hundreds of lives until he/she graduates eventually basic lessons. Therefore he returns again and again (samsara in Sanskrit) in related family/friends configurations with other kindred souls to play around roles like above to comprehend a major lesson thoroughly in all aspects.
Escaping from the wheel of reincarnation on this planet, and the welcome parties for a soul after death
If a soul proves himself to be a “champion” and by practicing spirituality or just by higher understanding burns steps, then he increases vibration a lot in the same life and he upgrades directly to another higher set of experiences, short-cutting tenths and hundreds of lives and increases his soul growth a lot. It’s like a 3rd grade pupil who proves to be a genius and is promoted by the school headmaster directly in the 5th or even 6th grade and skips 4th or 5th grade. As such, in the next lives he/she won’t meet again his former group since he’s in another league now …
The ordinary 3/4D souls upon death need lots of support for transitioning “beyond” and therefore he/she is welcomed beyond “the veil” by familiar figures since he is confused and scared at the beginning. Generally, the “welcome party” is made of the soul’s guides during life (souls in 5D vibration generally) who take the appearance of his loved ones to make the soul feel in a familiar context and decrease his fear and confusion … This is necessary since usually his former family and friends members souls that were already death when he transitioned were also 3/4D souls and not high enough and skilled enough to be part of a “spiritual welcome committee” beyond this physical plane ...
Higher souls, guides and wandering souls
Higher souls in 5D+ prefer to incarnate in higher dimensions at the same level with their soul vibration, and live lives at that vibration which is much less dualistic. On Earth, the 5D and 6D dimension is populated with such souls that live such lives invisible to us; when they want they make themselves visible to us and we call them UFOs, “apparitions”, angels, etc it depends on the context. Many 5D+ souls take the role of guides to smaller soul in 3-4D, but without embodying here to avoid being caught in the chaos of duality from down here.
There are also higher souls like in 6–7+D (enlightenment level, like Krishna, Buddha, Jesus etc) who are brave enough to come here for embodiment to help directly the smaller souls, but generally they run into big problems as history showed…
Anyway, when an embodied higher soul dies he goes up like a rocket to return Home in higher dimensions, unlike the smaller souls who many times after death instead of returning in higher dimensions roam around between planes for months, years, and many even longer. These are the ghosts that haunt old houses and castles, cemeteries, battle fields, accidents places and so on.
To raise them to the Light were religions initially established, as I explained in another post of mine, but since quite a long time the priests have lost largely the capacity to send them Home these souls remain in huge numbers around as wandering souls …