How to Make a Genogram

The seven steps

1. Gather the history first. Before drawing anything, list names, birth years, deaths, marriages and divorces, and who lived with whom. Sketching while you interview works too, but a blank diagram plus an unstructured conversation usually produces a mess you redraw.
2. Place the index person. Start with whoever the genogram is about and give them the doubled outline. Everything is positioned relative to this person, so put them near the bottom centre with room above for two more generations.
3. Add the parents' generation. Place both parents above the index person, father conventionally on the left. Join them with a union line and mark what kind it is — marriage, cohabitation, separation or divorce — with the date on the line where you know it.
4. Add the grandparents. Repeat upward for both sides. Three generations is the working standard because it is the minimum that can show a pattern repeating rather than a single event.
5. Draw the children and siblings. Hang children below their union line, oldest to youngest, left to right. Use a solid drop line for biological children, dashed for adopted and dotted for foster, and join twins at a single point.
6. Add the emotional layer. Only now add close, fused, distant, conflictual and cut-off lines. Doing this last keeps the structural diagram clean and separates fact from interpretation — which matters if anyone else will read it.
7. Label, tidy, and export. Add birth and death years and any clinical notes, auto-arrange to align the generations, then export a PNG or PDF with the title block and legend so the diagram is readable without you standing next to it.

Conventions that keep a genogram readable

Most of what makes a genogram legible is positional convention rather than symbol choice. Keep each generation on its own horizontal band, so that vertical position always means generation. Put the father on the left of a union and order children oldest to youngest, left to right — readers scan for this and misread the diagram when it is reversed. Where two conventions compete, such as ages inside shapes versus birth years beneath them, pick one and apply it to every person on the page.

Mistakes worth avoiding

• Drawing the emotional layer too early. It hardens interpretations before the structure is settled, and it makes the diagram hard to rearrange.
• Confusing fused with close. Three lines is not a stronger version of two; fusion denotes low differentiation, which is a different clinical claim.
• Omitting the legend. The notation is standard but not universally memorised. Export with a key attached.
• Recording full names on clinical material. Use initials if your documentation policy calls for it.

Shortcuts

If you would rather not start from a blank canvas, the templates cover family therapy, family health history and social work assessment, and the worked examples show finished diagrams with their interpretations. Unfamiliar with a symbol? The symbols reference catalogues all of them. For a three-generation walkthrough specifically, see the 3-generation genogram guide.

Making a genogram — FAQ