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Show that someone has died

Record that a person has died, so that the symbol is crossed through and the years of birth and death are written above it.

1 min readChecked 16 October 2026Open in the editor

A death is shown by an X drawn through the person’s symbol, following McGoldrick, Gerson and Petry (2020). The years of birth and death are written above the symbol, and the age at death is written inside it when both years are known. The cause of death is kept in the side panel and is not drawn on the canvas.

Demonstration in the editor
This demonstration runs in the editor on a copy of a sample family. It does not change your own chart.

Procedure

  1. 1

    Click the person to open the side panel.

  2. 2

    Under Basics, set Status to Deceased. An X is drawn through the symbol, and the Died and Cause fields appear.

  3. 3

    Type the year of death in Died. The age at death appears beside the field and inside the symbol.

  4. 4

    If the cause of death is known, type it in Cause.

Tip

If the person died of an illness that the genogram should show, record it under Health as well, because only a recorded condition shades the symbol.

Note

Setting Status back to Living removes the year of death.