Genogram vs Ecomap
Two different diagrams that are often assigned together. The live example below is the genogram half — a fictional social work assessment showing household, divorce, cohabitation and a foster placement.
Drag people to arrange. Click a person to edit their details.
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Quick start
- 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.
Export
includes watermarkIncludes a title block and an auto-generated legend of the symbols you used.
The short answer
A genogram is vertical and historical. It maps three or more generations of a family and the relationships between them, using standardised notation, to reveal patterns transmitted down the family line.
An ecomap is horizontal and present-tense. It draws the household as one central circle and radiates outward to the systems it interacts with — school, employer, healthcare, faith community, extended family, benefits agencies, neighbours — recording how strong, weak or stressful each connection currently is. The ecomap was introduced by Ann Hartman in the mid-1970s in a child-welfare context.
Side by side
| Genogram | Ecomap | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Vertical — across generations | Horizontal — across systems |
| Time frame | Historical, three-plus generations | Present situation |
| Centre | The index person | The household as a unit |
| Shows | Kinship, unions, relationship quality | External supports and stressors |
| Lines mean | Type of bond and emotional quality | Strength and direction of connection |
| Typical use | Family history, pattern-finding, therapy | Resource mapping, care planning |
Why they pair
The two diagrams fail in opposite directions, which is exactly why assessments ask for both. A genogram alone can explain a family's patterns while missing that they currently have no childcare, an unstable tenancy and a caseworker they distrust. An ecomap alone can catalogue services while missing that the grandmother in the home has been the stabilising figure for three generations. Together they give history and present circumstance.
In the fictional assessment above, the genogram already carries information an ecomap would not: Gloria lives in the home and is close to her daughter Maria, the biological father Tony is distant from Sofia and in conflict with Maria, and Amara was placed in 2023 on a foster line rather than a biological one. An accompanying ecomap would add the school, the placing agency, Maria's employer and the family's healthcare links, with each connection marked strong, tenuous or stressful.
Practical notes
Draw the genogram first. Family structure determines who belongs in the ecomap's central circle, and getting household composition wrong makes the ecomap wrong too. Keep the same person shapes across both so a reader can move between them, and date both diagrams — an ecomap in particular describes a moment, and goes stale faster than the genogram beside it.
This editor builds the genogram half, including the foster, adopted and cohabitation notation social work assessments need; the social work assessment template is the quickest start. See also genogram vs. family tree for the other comparison people are usually looking for, and genogram symbols for the full notation.
Genogram and ecomap FAQ
›What is the difference between a genogram and an ecomap?
A genogram looks inward and backward: it maps family members across three or more generations and the relationships between them. An ecomap looks outward and at the present: it puts the household in a central circle and maps its connections to external systems such as school, work, healthcare, church, extended family and agencies. One shows where the family came from, the other shows what currently supports or strains it.
›Are genograms and ecomaps used together?
Frequently, especially in social work assessment, because they answer different questions and neither substitutes for the other. A common sequence is genogram first to establish family structure and history, then ecomap to record the present support network — the pair gives both the vertical and horizontal picture.
›Who created the ecomap?
The ecomap was introduced by Ann Hartman in the mid-1970s as part of a diagrammatic approach to assessing family relationships, developed in a child-welfare practice context.
›Does an ecomap use the same symbols as a genogram?
It reuses the genogram's person shapes inside the central household circle, but its connecting lines mean something different. Ecomap lines run from the household out to each external system, and their style indicates the strength and direction of the connection — commonly solid for strong, dashed for tenuous, and hatched or jagged for stressful, with arrows for the direction of energy or resources.
›Which one does my assignment need?
If the question is about family history, intergenerational patterns or relationship quality within the family, it wants a genogram. If it is about supports, services, resources and stressors around the household right now, it wants an ecomap. Assignments in social work often ask for both, with a written interpretation tying them together.