Family Genogram Example with Explanation

A three-generation family genogram with every person, symbol and line explained in plain words. It includes a divorce and a remarriage, an adopted son, a miscarriage, a death, one close relationship and one conflict, so a student can see how each is drawn and how to describe it in a written assignment. The family is fictional.

Overview

This three-generation genogram maps 11 family members of the fictional Martin and Rossi families. The index person is Sophie Martin (24), a psychology student who drew it for a family systems course; her symbol has the highlighted outline. Read it from the top row (the oldest generation) to the bottom row, and from left to right within each row. Men are squares, women are circles, years are written above each symbol and the current age, or age at death, is inside it.

Generation 1: the grandparents

The top row has Sophie’s two sets of grandparents. On the left, George Martin (square, 1946–2020) and Helen Martin (circle, born 1949) married in 1972; the line between them is labelled "m 72". The X through George’s square shows he has died, 74 is his age at death and "Heart attack" is the cause, so the marriage line also carries a small x and "wid 20" because Helen was widowed in 2020. On the right, Antonio Rossi (born 1950) and Maria Rossi (born 1953) married in 1975 and are both living.

Generation 2: the parents, an aunt and a stepfather

The middle row has George and Helen’s two children, hanging from their parents’ line oldest first: Anne (born 1971), a nurse, and David (born 1974), an accountant. Next to David is Laura (born 1976), the only child of Antonio and Maria, so a single line drops from the Rossi couple to her. David and Laura married in 2000 and divorced in 2012, which is why their line has two slashes and the label "m 00 · d 12". On Laura’s other side is Tom Fischer (born 1973), whom she married in 2015 ("m 15"). Tom is Sophie’s stepfather.

Generation 3: the children

The bottom row has David and Laura’s children, oldest on the left. Sophie was born in 2002. The small black dot is a miscarriage in 2004, kept in birth order because it is part of the family’s history. Ben, born in 2006, has a dotted line labelled "adopted 2007": David and Laura adopted him when he was ten months old. Sophie and Ben lived with their mother after the divorce.

The emotional lines

Two lines show emotional relationships rather than family ties. The double blue line between Sophie and her grandmother Helen means they are close. The red double dashed line between David and his sister Anne means conflict: they fell out over their father’s estate after George died in 2020.

Colours and shading

Coloured halves inside a symbol mark health conditions, and the key beside the chart says which colour is which. George had heart disease, Maria has type 2 diabetes, Laura had depression (partly filled because she is in recovery) and Ben has anxiety. Everyone else has no recorded condition.

What the genogram shows

Read as a whole, the chart shows a family reorganised by divorce and remarriage, a child joining through adoption after a pregnancy loss, and a death that strained the sibling relationship in the middle generation. Those are the patterns a written explanation would go on to discuss. Names and details are fictional.

The free plan includes 2 genograms and 5 AI credits a month. See the AI genogram creator for what else it can do.

• Writing this up for a course? See our genogram assignment guide.
• Read more about the three-generation genogram.
• Start smaller with a simple genogram example.
• Every symbol is in the genogram symbols guide.