1. It should include at least 3 generations (your generation, your
parents’ and your grandparents’). If you have children, or a
spouse or partner you should include them as well. List all of your
family members on both the maternal and paternal sides of your
family.
2. Begin with yourself. See the attached sheet for the appropriate
symbols to use in your genogram. Write your name, age, place
of birth, and year in school next to the appropriate symbol. Do
the same for your siblings if applicable. Always place the eldest
sibling on the left, and be sure to place yourself in the correct
birth order. Write their names, ages, location, occupations, level
of education, health status, and date or causes of death (if
deceased).
3. Next draw the symbols for your parents. Write their names, ages,
location, occupations, level of education, health status, and
date or causes of death (if deceased). If your parents are
divorced, add their date of divorce or separation, current
spouses and date of marriage, and other relevant statistics. See
the attached page for the proper genealogical symbols. Also
add your parents’ siblings.
4. Next add your grandparents and their siblings. Add the same
information that you added for your parents.
5. You may also add any non-blood related persons who are a part
of your extended family. Be sure to note that they are members
of your extended family.
6. Make note of and mark any patterns that you observe while
constructing your genealogy (substance abuse, mental illness,
etc.). These patterns can be denoted by symbols (i.e. stars or
flags) or colours. Apply this to each member that shows this
pattern.
7. Write a three pages narrative essay describing your family
genogram. Issues that should be addressed in this narrative:
a. First, you should begin by defining what the term “family”
means to you and describing how your definition of family
influenced the content of your genogram.
b. Second, you should explain how your use of symbols,
placement of family members, connecting lines, and
boundaries represent the members of your family and
particularly the relationships within the family. You should also
discuss your reasons for excluding family members that it may
have been logical to include.
Answer:
It is often said that we cannot pick our families. Like it or not, our
relatives are our relatives. The families that we are born into all have
their own stories, histories, and legacies all of which impact our lives
in one way or another. In this assignment, we begin to explore our
families. Think about your family: Who is in your family? What is your
family’s story? All families are different, thus all families are special.
With this assignment you will have the opportunity to discover how
special your family is by establishing your own family Genealogy
Diagram - Genogram.
A genogram is a family diagram, which can be thought of as going
a step beyond the family tree. Genograms provide a way of
mapping family patterns and relationships across at least three
generations. Genograms report information on family structures like
family trees do.
Creating your own family genogram poses questions such as -
where do I begin? Before you even start putting mouse to pad, you
will need to do some background work. First, you need to decide
how many generations you wish to depict on your genogram. You
will probably want to keep to three generations, (you and your
siblings, parents, grandparents). Next, you will need to do some
research. You may look at a family tree to make sure you have all
the names, birthdates and relations correct. You may interview
some family members to fill in missing information. You might ask
family members to tell you family stories to help you understand
what types of relationships different family members have.
Remember confidentiality is an issue thus review the Cautions and
caveats section that will help you be sensitive when approaching
family members.
Once you have the information collected, you can let your artistic
talents flow! The method of creating a genogram using the
computer is quite simple as long as you refer back to the Basic
genogram components section to help you ensure you are using
the accepted symbols for genogram creation.
Explanation:
