Recording Extra Details on People
Blood types, immigration dates, occupations, and anything else the standard symbols don't cover.
Standard genogram notation covers a lot — but real projects always need one more field: blood types, immigration dates, military service, anything specific to your work. Here's where each kind of detail goes.
Built-in detail fields
Double-click a person to open their profile. Beyond name and dates, you can record occupation, education, location, religion, medical conditions, and more — each has a matching view mode that visualizes it across the whole genogram.
Occupation years and alternative names
Occupation takes optional From and To years, so a label can read Teacher (1985–2019) rather than just the job title. And if someone goes by a maiden name, nickname, or other alternative name, it's shown in parentheses after their primary name on the canvas.
Immigration dates and countries
Immigration uses standard squiggle notation (single squiggle = lived in multiple cultures, double = immigrated). Record the date and country of origin in the person's details so they show in the profile alongside the marker.
Everything else: notes
Each person has a notes field for free-form information — blood type, clinical observations, family stories. Notes travel with the person and are searchable, but don't clutter the canvas.
Making custom info visible on the canvas
Two options: add canvas text/notes near the relevant people, or add a custom section to the key defining your own abbreviations (for example, "B+ = blood type") and put the abbreviation in the person's label. See The Genogram Key article for custom key sections.