Grand space opera, popular music, and transforming mecha aside, the main underpinning of MACROSS has always been the characters. The creators have called it "a small love triangle story against the backdrop of war," and that is how it has been through the multiple incarnations of these past fifteen years.
Whether it is the original trio of fighter pilot Hikaru, career officer Misa, and idol singer Minmay or MACROSS 7's Basara, Mylene, and Gamlin, this emphasis has remains. ROSE OF VERSAILLES or MARMALADE BOY it is not, but MACROSS distinguishes itself within the space science fiction genre with its focus on the involved—albeit sometimes overwrought—relationships.
Eventually, these love triangles (square? pentagon? n-gon?) resolve themselves, and the happy couples become families. The story of MACROSS now covers almost half a century, and as a result, we have families of characters extending three generations.
Hikaru and Misa finally tie the knot after the end of the first MACROSS series and have their own daughter Miku. Bridge operator Vanessa has no less than three kids with former Zentradi spy Loli. Through ace pilots Max and Milia Jenius, the MACROSS 7 series and its heroine Mylene Jenius have a connection to the first Macross series. (To be sure, Basara's lack of a known family background is integral to the MACROSS 7 story.)
Even MACROSS PLUS characters have a family background, as revealed offscreen in the first (and thus far only) novel volume. Myung's biologist father and musically-inclined mother cultivated her love for nature and singing. Guld's Zentradi father and Human mother pioneered the scientific exploration of the United Nation's first interstellar colony planet Eden. Finally, Isamu's father was a deep space pilot missing in action since before Isamu's birth.
Here are the geneological charts of three of the most prominent family trees in MACROSS.

* Although Minmay and Kaifunn are cousins, the Macross Perfect Memory reference book emphasizes that there are "no blood relation" between them.