Who was your family hero? How did your family show love when you were growing up? What made your family laugh? What were the special talents of your grandparents? What about your parents? Which sibling(s) were you closest to? How is your family today different than the one you grew up in?

Whether you are writing a memoir and need an effective way to gather family stories, or simply want a more personal way to document your family tree, creating a genogram can be the perfect tool to bring your family tree alive with stories and interesting characters.

Like archaeologists on an archeological dig, genograms unearth family histories to discover untold richness and meaning. Initially used by social workers, therapists and doctors to record family histories, a genogram can also be used by laypeople to enhance their family trees with great success. A genogram is a graphic representation-a diagram-of family members and their relationships over 3 to 5 generations.

It is a tool that helps document what you remember about your grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. Or the special people in your life who you are not related to. It also documents any children you have and grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. It is a legacy that you create on paper (or in a digital file if you use genogram software) that provides an up close and personal look at your immediate family tree.

Unlike a standard genealogical chart, a genogram documents emotional links and family patterns, family successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses. It illustrates patterns of behavior in families that otherwise go unnoticed, but that can lead to a pathway of greater understanding of your family and yourself. It provides important clues about family roles, expectations, patterns of organization and sources of resilience. It expands beyond standard genealogy to document sibling position and characteristics, family roles people played, family scripts they followed, and triangles that were created. A genogram can even document where some of the family secrets are buried.

Creating a genogram can offer a new understanding and appreciation of where you come from. Instead of actual photographs-though you might want to include those, too-a genogram helps you document your family’s cast of characters, its quirks, its tragedies, its triumphs. All those things that make us interesting as human beings. By making notes on the genogram you add greater dimension to the important people in your life and the legacy of your family. It can give psychological snapshots of the family members that you don’t want to be forgotten and help preserve their family stories. Ultimately, a genogram identifies how your family lived and related, as well as gives you greater awareness of how your family lives in you.

While knowing the names and dates of your great, great, greats can be valuable, a genogram is a unique gift that you can leave for your descendents that will have lasting meaning in their lives. Instead of focusing on an entire forest in the vast landscape of our family trees (which often becomes overwhelming), a genogram takes a more distinctive look at a specific grove of trees. Not only does it educate future family members about who came before them, it also helps ensure that you and your memories of family members will not be forgotten.

Author Bio: Susan Gabriel, M.Ed, created the Family Time Capsule, a unique multimedia program which provides your parents & other honored elder family members, as well as the family historians and storytellers in your family, a comprehensive & easy way to build their legacy. Visit Your Family Time Capsule

Category: Family Concerns
Keywords: family tree, genogram, genealogy, writing memoirs