The Saratoga was smaller than both the Enterprise D and E, and she carried families. The ship Vico in the episode Hero Worship was smaller than the Saratoga, and she also carried families. Unless we're talking about a specialty ship like the Defiant, the determining factor on whether there would be family members aboard would probably be the duration of the mission, and not the size of the ship. If mommy or daddy were going to be gone for months at a time, they'd want the kids with them.
To chime in on the size discussion.... I found this on the good ol' interwebz, and I think it makes sense... http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8792/3axissizecompare.jpg Taking the official length of both classes, and overlaying them like this, gives you a pretty idea of how small the Sovereign class really is compared to the Galaxy class. FYI, I love the Sovereign class.
The "D" truly is a city in space! Great comparison. I had no idea of the extent of the difference between the two.
At the time of first season TNG, I thought of the Ent-D as the Star Trek version of the CE3K mothership.
Hell, families or not, that ship was fully crewed and he destroyed the first quarter of the primary hull with the ramming- imagine how many people were in that section and did not have a clue what was going to happen until impact...
I agree. The death of the D in Generations was very pointless, it almost reminds me of the death of Yar, it was just there. No other reason. If the D was so badly damaged defeating the Borg in FC and then they introduced the replacement E at the end, I think that would have been much better, but like just about everything in Generations, it's a lost opportunity. They should have had a clue, they were in the middle of a frikkin' space battle.
Riker gave an order to evacuate several consecutive decks (which seem to be within the saucer section) that had been structurally compromised earlier. The area that was wrecked when the Enterprise crashed into the Scimitar might have been empty, and Picard knew that when he came up with the idea to ram it. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2249.jpg
There being any personnel in the bow section would depend on what's there in terms of a red alert duty station. It could have been completely empty. During red alerts I could easily see family members moving quickly to the center most area of the saucer, the same place they put sickbay and the main computer. Basically a protected "bunker." Immediately after the ramming, Picard next action was to attempt to engage the Auto-destruct sequence. It actually was his intent that everyone on both ships die. He thought destroying the Scimitar was that important. It was only after finding out that (naturally) the destruct was off-line that he gave the order to move the Enterprise as far as possible away from the Scimitar and then he beamed over.
^ If you think about it, TenForward is a pretty crappy place to have a "designated safety zone" if there's a battle. It's on the outer most area of the ship, if there's going to be a weapons impact, hull breach and explosive decompression, TenForward is a prime candidate. Now if the ship is being boarded, TenForward would be a good place. It's far away from the "important" areas like the bridge, engineering, computers and the like.
Not all emergencies involve battles. Ten-Forward would still be a good designated safety zone in the event of a shipwide system failure (like the main computer going offline or communications failure--personnel and passengers could gather there for instructions by deck officers).
We saw the Enterprise being prepared for hours while in warp flight to the Rift before Shinzon even opened fire. A lot of that probably was diverting all non-red alert personnel to the interior of the ships mass.
Maybe Ten Forward has special sheilding around it. The whole thing can be a huge lifeboat that can jettison into space in case the ship is destroyed. They can steer it by turning Guinan's hat.