Marking Death, Loss, and Sensitive Events

Genograms often record the hardest parts of a family's history: a death, a pregnancy loss, or abuse. GenogramAI uses standard notation for each. This guide shows how to record them and how to keep sensitive details out of sight when you share the chart.

Marking a death and the year

1. Click the person to open the Inspector.
2. Click the status badge under their name and choose Deceased. An X is drawn through the symbol.
3. Open the Vitals tab and fill in Death (month, day and year; the year alone is fine). Age at Death is worked out from the dates, or you can type it.

With the Birthyear text label on, the years show under the symbol as a range, for example 1938–2003. The Age label shows the age at death.

Recording cause of death, including suicide

There is no special symbol for suicide, overdose or any other cause. The convention is the deceased X plus the cause written out. Type it in Cause of Death in the Vitals tab.

While the Death text label is on, the cause is written under the symbol with a dagger, for example † Heart attack. To keep it saved but hidden, open Text Labels (the tag icon in the toolbar) and untick Death. That hides the cause for everyone on the genogram.

Pregnancy and pregnancy loss

These symbols belong in the sibling row, in birth order among the other children. They are not attached to the mother's symbol.

• Pregnancy: a triangle, for a current pregnancy.
• Miscarriage: a small filled dot.
• Stillbirth: a smaller version of the gender symbol with an X.
• Abortion: a small X.

1. Click one of the parents and choose Add Child in the radial menu around them.
2. Drag the new child into its place in birth order.
3. Click its status badge in the Inspector and choose the status.

The Inspector has no death-year field for miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion. To record the year of the loss, ask the AI Assistant, for example "the miscarriage was in 1990", or write it in the Notes tab.

Abuse and the direction of harm

Abuse is shown with an emotional relationship line with an arrow. Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse and Sexual Abuse are separate types, so you can be specific. The arrow points at the person who was harmed.

1. Click the person who caused the harm. In the radial menu, drag Emotional Line to the person who was harmed.
2. The line starts as Close; click it and pick the abuse type in the Inspector's type grid.
3. If the arrow points the wrong way, click the line and press the small reverse button on the selected type in the Inspector. You don't need to redraw it.

See Drawing Relationship Lines, Step by Step for the full flow.

Privacy tip: keep sensitive details off the canvas

Anything written on the canvas is visible to everyone who sees the genogram, including relatives in the room. Some options:

• Untick labels you don't want shown in Text Labels (for example Death or Notes). The data stays saved.
• Use a Secret (the triangle in the toolbar, or press S). Its content stays hidden until clicked.
• When exporting, turn on Anonymize to replace names (a Pro option).

For real client data, the Clinical plan adds Clinical mode and zero-knowledge encryption. See Clinical Mode.