Genogram Key
Print this, keep it open in a second tab, or pin it beside the diagram you are reading. It is the short version — the dozen-odd marks you hit on almost every genogram, in the order your eye should take them: the shape, then the line between two shapes, then whatever is drawn over that line. Decode those three and most of the page resolves on the first pass.
A three-generation genogram — couples, children, and the emotional lines between them.
- Male
- Female
- Deceased
- Index person
- Close
- Conflict
The shapes
who is on the pageA male family member. Drawn as a square.
A female family member. Drawn as a circle.
A person whose sex is unknown (e.g. an unborn child, or unrecorded ancestor).
The identified patient / client the genogram is centred on. Marked with a doubled outline.
A person who has died. An X is drawn through the symbol; death year noted top-right.
The lines between them
marriage, divorce, childrenA married couple. Solid line down from each partner and across; partner on the left is conventionally male. Marriage year noted on the line (m. YYYY).
Partners living together but not married. Drawn as a dashed line (date noted).
A divorced couple. Two slashes through the union line.
A couple's biological child. Solid vertical line from the union to the child; children ordered oldest (left) to youngest (right).
The lines drawn on top
the emotional layerA close relationship. Two parallel lines between the two people.
An emotionally distant relationship. A single faint/dashed line.
A conflictual relationship. A jagged (zigzag) line.
An emotional cutoff — contact broken off. A line interrupted by two short perpendicular bars.
One mark this key cannot give you: color
A shaded or quartered symbol means a tracked condition — but only the diagram itself can say which one. Fill and color have no fixed meaning across genograms, so every shade you use needs its own line in a legend on the page: red = diabetes, blue = depression, whatever you are mapping. A reader who finds a filled circle with no key entry beside it is stuck, and a grader will mark it down. Spell each color out.
This covers the common case. For the rest — pregnancy and loss, adopted and foster children, twins, separation and engagement, abuse and over-involvement, household boundaries, and how to place birth and death years around a symbol — with a note on how each one is drawn, read the full genogram symbols guide.
Stop reading the key. Draw with it.
Pick a shape, drag a line between two people, mark the emotional ties, and export a clean PDF or PNG. Free to build, no download, any device.
Open the genogram makerFrequently asked questions
- What is a genogram key?
- A genogram key (or legend) is the short reference you keep beside a diagram to read or label it: what each shape means, what the lines connecting people mean, and what any color or shading on a symbol stands for. It is the same idea as the key on a map — without it, half the marks are guesswork.
- What is the fastest way to read a genogram?
- Work the layers in order. Shapes first — square is male, circle is female, a doubled outline is the person the diagram centers on, an X means deceased. Then the structural lines — solid for marriage, two slashes for divorce, a vertical line down to each child. Then the emotional lines drawn over the top — parallel for close, jagged for conflict, a line broken by two bars for a cut-off.
- What do the colors on a genogram mean?
- Nothing fixed. Color and shading carry no standard meaning on their own — a filled or quartered symbol usually flags a medical or genetic condition, but the diagram has to spell out which one in its own legend. If a genogram uses color without a key entry next to it, that color cannot be read.
- Where can I see the full list of genogram symbols?
- The complete, categorized guide — people, pregnancy, couples, children, emotional relationships, and medical markers, each with how it is drawn — is on the genogram symbols page.