A clinical genogram is drawn around the problem that brought the family in
A clinical genogram is drawn for a client who has come with a problem, and the chart is arranged so that the problem can be seen in the family around them. The foster placement below is drawn for a nine year old girl who has lived with foster carers since she and her brother were removed from their mother earlier in the year. Read it from the index person. Her brother is beside her, the foster home is outlined as a temporary household, and the foster carers stand above the two children with the lines that mark a foster placement rather than descent.
The emotional lines then carry the clinical story. A caretaker line from the girl to her brother shows the role she took on while her mother was using, a close line to her mother and a distant one to her foster mother show where her loyalty lies, and on the side of the mother, a father who died of an overdose and a close but hostile bond with her own mother show the same pattern a generation earlier. The agency that holds the case is a box joined to the children. A social worker who reads this chart can see the question of reunification without opening the file.
A medical genogram follows one condition down the generations
A medical genogram is a family health history drawn in the genogram notation. The emotional lines are mostly left out, and the attention goes to who had what and at what age. The family below carries a BRCA2 variant on the side of the father, and it is drawn across four generations because that is how far the condition can be traced. The index patient is an unaffected carrier found by cascade testing, and her sister, her father, her aunt and her grandfather are each marked with the cancer they had and the age at which it was found.
Read a medical chart along the coloured symbols. On this one the colour runs down one side of the family and stops at a cousin who was adopted, drawn on the adopted child line, which is a fact that a list of diagnoses would lose. A single cancer on the side of the mother, late in life, is given its own colour so that it is not mistaken for part of the pattern. Charts of this kind are drawn by nurses, doctors and genetic counsellors, and the same template could serve for diabetes, heart disease or any inherited condition.
A famous family teaches the notation on facts that anyone can check
The textbook teaches the method on families whose facts are public, because a reader can check the chart against what they already know. The Brontë family is one of them. Patrick Brontë is drawn at Haworth with his wife, who died when the children were small, and with her sister, who came to keep house and stayed until her own death. The aunt, the father and the six children are outlined as one household for the years she was there. Every child died of tuberculosis, and every symbol in the second generation carries the cross, which is the first thing a reader sees.
The emotional lines then tell the story that the dates alone would not. Charlotte, the index person, is fused with her father, who outlived every one of his children, and the father is hostile to the curate who married her. Emily and Anne are close, and Branwell, whose drinking and laudanum are marked on his symbol, is close to the aunt. A reader who knows the novels sees the household that produced them. A student who does not can still see why the chart was chosen as an example of loss and of the boundaries a family draws around itself.
A custom chart adds lines of its own beside the standard notation
Some work needs relationships that the notation has no line for, and the editor allows a chart to define its own. The family firm below is drawn for an adviser who was asked to help with succession. The standard lines carry the family, which is three generations, a founder with heart disease who stepped back after a heart attack, a hostile rivalry between his son and daughter over who should lead the firm, and a daughter fused with her own daughter. The custom lines carry the business. Ownership of shares, employment and mentoring are each a line of their own, named in the key under their own heading.
Read a custom chart by reading the key first, since the lines it introduces are not ones a reader will know. On this chart the founder mentors his granddaughter every week and sees her as the natural successor, while his son, the chief executive and the index person, employs his own son in the firm. The hostile line between the siblings and the custom lines that cross the generations put the whole question of succession on one page. The other custom templates do the same for guardianship, financial dependency after a divorce, kinship care, a caregiving network, the supports around a teenager and a child welfare case with several agencies.
Any template opens in the editor and can be changed or drafted again
Every chart on this page is a template, and every template opens as an editable family rather than as a picture. The Templates page lists all thirty-four with a summary, what each demonstrates and where its facts come from, and it can be filtered by category and difficulty. Choosing Open in editor loads the family onto the canvas with its key, after which any person, line or condition can be changed, relatives can be added from the ring and the chart can be exported as a PNG, a PDF or an SVG. Three of the templates open without an account, and a free account opens the rest.
Each template also carries the case notes it was drawn from, written as an intake summary, and these can be read on the Templates page or opened as notes in the Describe sheet. Opening a template as notes is the best way to learn how a draft is reviewed, since the notes are complete, the family is fictional or on the public record, and the result can be compared with the finished chart. Opening a template replaces the family saved in this browser, so a chart you want to keep should be exported as a JSON project first.
- Go to the Templates page
Choose Templates in the header of the site, and filter by Category or Difficulty if the list is long.
- Read the card
Each card gives a summary, what the chart demonstrates, its source and the case notes it was drawn from.
- Open in editor
The family and its key are loaded onto the canvas, where every person, line and condition can be changed.
- Open as notes instead
The case notes open in the Describe sheet, where you can draft the chart yourself and review it against the finished template.
Before you decide
Whether the example families are real
The clinical, medical and custom families are fictional and were written as case notes for teaching, so nothing in them describes a living person. The famous families are drawn from the figures in the textbook and from public sources, which each template names. None of the templates should be mistaken for the chart of an actual client.
Which example to start from for an assignment
Start from the one nearest your brief. A nursing or medical assignment wants a chart like the hereditary cancer family, with conditions and ages and few emotional lines. A social work assignment wants one like the foster placement, with households, agencies and directed lines. A counselling or psychology assignment is usually closer to the Hawkins family, three generations with conditions and five or six emotional lines. Open the template, replace the people with your own and keep the shape.
How the templates were drawn
Each template begins as written case notes, and the chart is built from them by the layout engine of the editor, with every person placed by generation, siblings in order of age and every emotional line routed clear of the names. The same notes are used to test the drafting assistant, which has to rebuild the family from them. What this page shows is therefore what the editor draws, not an illustration prepared separately.
Whether a template can be used in published work
The fictional templates can be used freely in coursework, teaching materials and presentations, and the famous families rest on public facts that anyone may draw. A chart exported from a free account carries a small watermark, and the paid plans export without it. If a template is adapted for a real family, the names and facts it started with should be replaced completely, and the usual care with sensitive information applies.
Open any of these families in the editor and change it, or start from the Hawkins family and draw your own. No account is needed to begin.
Open the editor