A Modern Family genogram of the three households

The chart covers all 11 seasons of the series

Modern Family ran on ABC for 11 seasons, from September 2009 to April 2020, and followed three related households in suburban Los Angeles. This Modern Family genogram covers the whole run. It adds the relatives who change the shape of the family, which are Jay’s first wife DeDe, Gloria’s first husband Javier, and Haley’s husband and twins from season 10. Parents of the in-laws, cousins and friends are left out.

No birth years are drawn, because a year on the chart becomes an age counted to today. No emotional lines are drawn either. The chart records who is related to whom and how, and leaves the characters’ feelings to the episodes.

Three households hang from one man and two marriages

Jay sits at the centre of the top row with a marriage on each side. His first marriage, to DeDe, produced Claire and Mitchell, and his marriage to Gloria produced Joe. Gloria brings Manny from her first marriage to Javier, so Manny is Jay’s stepson and Claire and Mitchell’s stepbrother, while Joe is their half-brother. The table names each household and the episodes that set it up.

Half-siblings and step-siblings are drawn differently

Joe and Manny are a useful pair to compare. Joe shares a father with Claire and Mitchell, so he hangs from Jay’s second couple line and is their half-brother. Manny shares no parent with them. He hangs from Gloria and Javier, and he becomes their stepbrother only through Gloria’s marriage to Jay. On the chart that difference is visible at once, because the two boys come down from two different couple lines.

Gloria also carries the two wavy lines that the notation uses for a person who migrated, since the character comes from Barranquilla in Colombia. The genogram symbols explain each mark, and the guide to showing half siblings on a genogram covers the same pattern in a real family.

Adoption and twins appear in the youngest generation

Mitchell and Cameron adopt two children, Lily and, in the final season, her baby brother Rexford. Both hang on dotted adoption lines from the couple, which is how the notation separates adoption from birth. The two men carry the inverted triangle inside the square, which the notation uses for a person who identifies as LGBTQIA, and their wedding in the season 5 finale is drawn with the same marriage line as every other couple.

Haley and Dylan’s twins, Poppy and George, hang from a single point on their couple line. A girl and a boy are drawn as fraternal twins. Their birth in the season 10 finale, “A Year of Birthdays”, makes Jay a great-grandfather and gives the chart its fourth generation.

What this Modern Family genogram leaves out and why

The series introduces many more relatives than the chart shows. Phil’s father Frank, Cameron’s parents Barb and Merle and his older sister Pam, Gloria’s mother Pilar and Jay’s brother Donnie all appear in episodes. Each would add a couple or a sibling line at the edge of the chart without changing how the three households connect, so they are left out. Dylan’s earlier marriage, in season 8, to a doctor with three children of her own is left out for the same reason.

A chart drawn for a class can add any of them, as long as it names the episode that shows the relationship. Choose a question first, such as how the households are related or how a remarriage reshapes a family, and draw only the people who answer it. The genogram examples show clinical and historical families cut down in the same way.

Rebuild this Modern Family genogram from a blank sheet

To practise, rebuild the chart in the editor rather than copying the picture. Start with Jay and his two marriages, because every household hangs from them.