Draw Family Tree

Genogram examples you can open and edit

Four finished genograms: a three-generation family, a divorce and remarriage, a medical family history and a genetics pedigree. Read how each one works, download it, or open it in the genogram maker and change it.

1. A three-generation family genogram

The Rivera family: grandparents on both sides, parents with their brothers and sisters, and Emma, the index person, with her siblings.
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This is the genogram most classes ask for. Emma, the index person, has a double outline. Her parents married in 1990; her mother's parents divorced in 1978 (two slashes on their line). Both grandfathers have died (an X in the square, with the years above). The left half of a symbol is filled for an illness, written under the name, and the bottom half for an alcohol problem. Ava's dashed line shows she was adopted, and Emma lives with her partner Alex (a dashed couple line, LT for living together). The colored lines show a close relationship between Emma and her mother, conflict between Noah and his father, and a cutoff between Sarah and her father.

2. Divorce and remarriage (a blended family)

The Brooks family: divorced parents, a stepmother, a half-brother, twins and a new pregnancy.
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James and Laura divorced in 2012. James then married Karen, drawn on his other side, and their son Owen is Mia's half-brother. Laura lives with Ryan, and the triangle under their line is a pregnancy. Ben and Lily are twins, joined at one point on the children's line. Laura's parents separated in 1990, shown with a single slash.

3. A medical genogram (family health history)

The Green family: heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer across three generations.
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Doctors and genetic counselors use genograms to spot conditions that run in a family. Here diabetes appears in a grandmother and her son, and breast cancer in a grandmother and her daughter, which is worth telling a doctor about. Frank's three-quarter shading means both an illness and an alcohol problem.

4. A genetics pedigree

An autosomal recessive trait: two carrier parents (half filled) have an affected daughter, the proband.
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In genetics class, pedigrees track one trait. Filled symbols are affected, half-filled ones are carriers, and the arrow marks the proband. The trait skips a generation: neither parent is affected, but both are carriers. Read more in how to read a pedigree.

Make your own

Open any example in the genogram maker, click a person and change the name, or start over with your own family. All the symbols are listed in genogram symbols and lines.