A genogram is a diagram of a family that records the relationships between people, not only the descent from one generation to the next. A family tree answers who came from whom. A genogram answers that too, and then keeps going: who is close to whom, who is in conflict, who stopped speaking to whom and when, which patterns repeat across three generations.
The form was developed for clinical work. Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson set out a standard notation in the 1980s, and it remains in use today in family therapy, social work, nursing and general practice. A clinician sitting with a family draws one because the shape of a problem is often easier to see than to describe — an estrangement that skipped a generation, or a caretaking role that has passed down the same line three times, tends to become obvious the moment it is on paper.
The basic vocabulary is small enough to learn in a few minutes. Squares are men, circles are women, and a diamond is used when gender is unknown or not recorded. Horizontal lines join partners; vertical lines drop to their children. Onto that skeleton the notation adds the part a family tree has no way to express: a doubled line for a close bond, a jagged line for conflict, a cut line for estrangement, a dashed line for cohabitation rather than marriage.
That second layer is what makes the diagram worth drawing. A family tree of the Kennedys tells you who the siblings were. A genogram of the same family can show which of those relationships was warm, which was distant, and where a rupture sits — the information a clinician, a genealogist or a novelist is usually actually after.
Genograms are not only clinical. The same notation works for the cast of a novel, a royal succession, a founding team, or the households in a single building. Anything that is a web of people rather than a simple line of descent is easier to hold in one picture than in prose.
A three-generation genogram. Every person below is rendered from the live diagram.
Open this genogram →