Genogram Generator
The editor below is generated from the four-generation structure: 9 people across 4 generations with 11 connections already drawn. Change the names to your own family, or pick a different structure from the template list in the full editor.
Drag people to arrange. Click a person to edit their details.
Editable preview — your changes aren't saved here.
- Add people with the ▢ ◯ ◇ buttons, then click the canvas.
- Use Connect… for marriages, children, and emotional lines.
- Click a person to edit name, years, deceased, notes.
- Drag to arrange, or hit Auto-arrange.
- Export as PNG or PDF — the legend builds itself.
Includes a title block and an auto-generated legend of the symbols you used.
Your genogram autosaves in your browser. Get our symbol cheat sheet + templates by email so you can pick it up anywhere:
What it generates, exactly
Three things, and it is worth being precise about them because "generator" is used loosely by diagram apps that only hand you a shape palette.
- The structure. 12 built-in family structures ship with this tool, holding 89 people and 100 connections already drawn between them. Starting from one means the couple lines, the drop lines and the generation rows exist before you type anything.
- The layout. Auto-arrange computes each person's generation from the links, puts every generation on one row, and centres children under the couple they belong to. This is the part that takes longest by hand and is the first thing to go wrong when a family grows a branch.
- The legend. The export scans the finished diagram and lists only the notation you used, so a reader who does not know that a dotted drop line means a foster placement is told, on the page, without a full notation dump.
Generator vs. drawing it in a shape tool
| Job | This generator | Word, Docs, Canva |
|---|---|---|
| Starting structure | 12 pre-connected families | Blank canvas |
| Generation alignment | Computed by auto-arrange | Manual, by eye |
| Notation | Standard marks built in | Rectangles you relabel |
| Legend | Generated from marks used | You write it |
| Moving one person | Lines follow | Lines detach |
| Cost | Free, watermarked export | Licence you already pay for |
The last row is the honest one: if the diagram is three people for a school assignment, a shape tool is fine. The generator earns its place at the point where a line has to survive you moving somebody — which is roughly the third generation. For the drawing-it-yourself route, how to make a genogram in Word walks through it properly, limits and all.
Generating one in four steps
- Pick the closest structure. Match the shape of the family, not the subject matter — a four-generation structure is a fine starting point for a two-child household because deleting people is faster than adding them.
- Retype the labels. Click each person for name, birth and death years, deceased and index-person marks, and notes. Notes are where conditions, occupations or placement dates live, depending on the kind of genogram you are building.
- Fix the relationships. Couple lines carry marriage, divorce, separation and cohabitation; drop lines carry biological, adopted and foster children; the emotional layer carries close, fused, distant, conflict and cutoff. The symbols reference has all of them with pictures.
- Auto-arrange, then export. Auto-arrange after any structural change, then export PNG for a document or PDF for a file or a print-out.
What it will not do
It will not import a family tree file, read a GEDCOM, or turn a paragraph of description into a diagram. It will not decide that two people are estranged. Those limits are the reason a genogram is worth making at all: the structural half is mechanical and worth automating, and the relational half is your clinical judgement, which is the part that gets read. If you want the structural half on paper instead, the blank genogram template is the same skeleton with every label empty.
Related pages
The full editor is the genogram maker home page, and the online genogram maker page covers running it on a locked-down school or work machine. For what costs nothing and what does not, see the free genogram maker page. Starting points live on genogram templates, finished ones on genogram examples, and the step-by-step build is how to make a genogram. New to the diagram entirely? Start at what is a genogram.
Genogram generator FAQ
›What does a genogram generator do?
It removes the drawing work. You supply the family — who is in it, who partnered with whom, who the children are — and the generator places the symbols, aligns the generations, routes the connecting lines, and builds a legend from the marks you used. What it does not do is invent the family for you: no tool can know that your grandfather died in 2011 or that two people are estranged.
›Is this genogram generator free?
Yes, the whole builder is free with no account and no trial clock, including PNG and PDF export. Free exports carry a small “Made with genogram-maker.com” footer watermark. A Pro option removes it and raises the export resolution, which matters only if you are publishing the diagram.
›Can it generate a genogram from a file or a family tree import?
No. There is no GEDCOM, CSV, or spreadsheet import — you build the family in the editor, starting from a template that already has the structure connected. That is a deliberate limit rather than a roadmap item we are hiding: the import formats in genealogy carry births, marriages and deaths but not the emotional and relational layer that makes a diagram a genogram rather than a family tree.
›How long does it take to generate a three-generation genogram?
A few minutes from a template. Loading a pre-connected structure and retyping the names is far quicker than placing shapes yourself, because the generations, the couple lines and the drop lines to each child already exist and simply need relabelling.
›Does auto-arrange move things I positioned deliberately?
Yes — it recomputes the layout so each generation sits on its own row and children hang under their parents. Use it when the diagram has drifted, then nudge individual people afterwards. Undo reverses it in one step if you preferred your own arrangement.