Family tree synonym guide, from pedigree to ancestor chart

The nearest synonyms of family tree are pedigree, genealogy and ancestor chart

A thesaurus lists pedigree, genealogy, ancestry, lineage and descent beside family tree. The words are not interchangeable. Family tree is the everyday name for a chart of a family. Pedigree chart and ancestor chart name a chart of the direct ancestors of one person. Genealogy names the study of families and the written record it produces, and lineage and ancestry name the line of descent itself.

One family drawn two ways shows the difference

The two charts at the top of this page draw the fictional Alder family. The family tree shows twelve people in three generations, with Nora, her brother, her aunt and uncle and her two cousins. The ancestor chart keeps only the people Nora descends from and adds a fourth generation, so it shows fifteen people and none of her cousins.

Each person on the ancestor chart has a number. Nora is number 1, her father is 2 and her mother is 3. The father of any person has twice the number of that person and the mother has one more, so Walter Alder, the father of number 2, is number 4. Genealogists call a list in this order an ahnentafel, a German word that means ancestor table.

Pedigree has one meaning in genealogy and another in genetics

In genealogy a pedigree chart is the ancestor chart described above. Many genealogy programs have a pedigree view, which starts with one person at the left edge and spreads the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents to the right.

In genetics a pedigree is a chart of how a trait or a health condition is inherited through the generations of a family. It is drawn with standard symbols and includes the brothers, sisters and other relatives who may carry the trait. In animal breeding a pedigree is the recorded ancestry of a dog, a horse or another animal. The word is traced to an Anglo-Norman phrase for the foot of a crane, which the forked lines of a chart resemble.

Genealogy is the study and the record, not the chart

Genealogy is the work of tracing families through records such as birth, marriage and census entries. The word also names the result, an account of the descent of a family. A genealogy can fill a book and contain many family trees, so the two words are not equal. Family history is a near synonym that adds the stories, the places and the occupations around the names.

Lineage, ancestry and descent name the line and not the drawing

Lineage is a single line of descent from one ancestor, the kind that a lineage society asks an applicant to prove one generation at a time. Ancestry is the whole group of people a person descends from, and in everyday speech it also covers ethnic origins. Descent is the fact of coming from an ancestor. None of the three is a chart, although each can be shown on one.

Two more charts sit beside these words. A descendant chart is the reverse of an ancestor chart and starts with one couple and shows everyone who descends from them. A genogram is a family tree with marks added for relationships and health, and the comparison of a genogram and a family tree explains when to draw one.

Each word belongs to a task

The table gives each word with what it names and the place where a reader is most likely to meet it.

Example sentences show each word in use

The sentences below were written for this guide about the Alder family. Swap in your own names to test which word fits.

Choose the word by the chart you need

Say family tree when the chart includes brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins. Say ancestor chart or pedigree chart when it follows only parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. Keep pedigree alone for a genetics class or a breed register, and genealogy for the research behind any of them.

The guide to how a family tree works reads the Alder tree line by line, and the guide to family tree relationship terms names each relative on it.