Create genograms in minutes, not hours. From text, images, or conversation.
A genogram is a detailed family diagram used by therapists, counselors, social workers, and medical professionals to map multi-generational family patterns. Unlike a basic family tree that only tracks lineage, a genogram captures the full picture of a family system:
- Emotional relationships — closeness, conflict, estrangement, fusion, abuse dynamics
- Medical history — hereditary conditions, mental health patterns, substance use across generations
- Structural relationships — marriages, divorces, separations, cohabitations, affairs
- Demographics — gender identity, sexual orientation, cultural heritage, religion, social class
Genograms follow the McGoldrick-Gerson notation system, a clinical standard used worldwide in family systems therapy, medical practice, and social work. They are a foundational tool in training programs for marriage and family therapy (MFT), clinical social work (LCSW), and psychiatric nursing.
| Family Tree | Genogram | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Genealogy & ancestry | Clinical assessment & therapy |
| Relationships | Biological lineage only | Emotional dynamics, conflict, closeness, abuse |
| Medical data | Rarely included | Core feature — tracks hereditary patterns |
| Notation | Informal, varies | Standardized (McGoldrick-Gerson symbols) |
| Used by | Hobbyists, genealogists | Therapists, doctors, social workers, researchers |
| Generations | As many as possible | Typically 3 generations (focused depth) |
Creating a genogram has traditionally been a painful, time-consuming process:
1. Manual drawing takes hours. A detailed 3-generation genogram with emotional relationships, medical history, and structural dynamics can take 2–4 hours to draw by hand or in generic diagramming software like Visio or Lucidchart. Every symbol must be placed correctly according to McGoldrick notation. Every line type must match the relationship it represents.
2. Existing genogram software is outdated. Most genogram tools available today are desktop-only applications originally built in the 2000s. Many require Java or Flash. They have clunky interfaces, no cloud sync, no collaboration, and no mobile access. For a profession that increasingly works across devices and locations, this is a real barrier.
3. There's no way to digitize paper genograms. Therapists, social workers, and counselors have years — sometimes decades — of hand-drawn genograms in client files, notebooks, and whiteboards. There has never been a practical way to convert these to digital format without manually redrawing every single one.
4. Relationship modeling is shallow. Most tools handle "married" and "divorced" but fail to capture the nuanced emotional dynamics that make genograms clinically useful: enmeshment, triangulation, emotional cutoffs, fused-conflict patterns, multi-generational abuse cycles. These are the patterns therapists actually need to see.
5. No tool helps you analyze what you've built. After investing hours creating a genogram, clinicians still have to manually scan for patterns — multigenerational transmission, repeated triangles, medical clustering. There's no software that helps surface these clinical insights.
GenogramAI is a modern, AI-powered genogram maker built specifically for mental health professionals, medical practitioners, researchers, and students. It uses Google's Gemini AI to make genogram creation fast, accurate, and insight-driven.
Describe a family in plain text, and GenogramAI builds the complete genogram automatically:
"John (b. 1960) married Mary (b. 1962) in 1985. They have two children: Sarah (b. 1987) who is married to Tom, and Mike (b. 1990) who struggles with depression. John's father was an alcoholic who died of liver disease at 65. Mary's parents divorced when she was 10 — she's been estranged from her father ever since."
GenogramAI parses this into a structured, interactive genogram with correct McGoldrick symbols, relationship lines, medical quadrant markers, and generational layout — in seconds, not hours.
Take a picture of a hand-drawn or printed genogram, upload it, and GenogramAI's vision AI extracts the family structure: people, relationships, names, dates, and symbols. Years of paper genograms can be digitized without redrawing a single line.
This works with:
- Pen-and-paper genograms from therapy sessions
- Whiteboard diagrams from clinical supervision
- Printed genograms from textbooks or case studies
- Scanned documents from client files
Once a genogram exists, modify it by chatting in natural language:
"Add a brother for Sarah named David, born 1989. He's estranged from his father and has a history of substance abuse."
The AI understands the existing family context, applies the change with correct symbols and positioning, and maintains the full structure. Multi-turn conversations support complex, incremental modifications — just like talking through a case with a colleague.
GenogramAI analyzes the family system and surfaces patterns using established family systems therapy frameworks:
- Multigenerational transmission — Recurring behavioral, emotional, or medical patterns across generations
- Triangulation — Three-person dynamics that stabilize dysfunctional relationships
- Emotional cutoffs — Severed connections and their downstream effects
- Medical pattern clustering — Hereditary conditions appearing across family lines
- Relationship dynamics — Fusion, conflict escalation, distancing, enmeshment patterns
These insights are generated with category tags and clinical language, ready to inform case conceptualization and treatment planning.
GenogramAI models the full spectrum of human relationships — not just "married" and "divorced":
| Category | Relationship Types |
|---|---|
| Bonding | Close, Harmony, Fused, Limerence, Friendship |
| Conflict | Conflict, Hostile, Violence, Hate, Distrust |
| Distance | Indifferent, Distant, Estranged, Never Met |
| Abuse | Physical, Emotional, Sexual, Neglect, Control, Manipulative |
| Complex | Fused-Conflict, Close-Hostile, Distant-Hostile |
Each relationship type renders with the correct McGoldrick-standard line pattern — no manual drawing required.
Marriage, Divorce, Legal Separation, Physical Separation, Cohabitation, Engagement, Dating, Life Partner, Affair, One Night Stand, Rape, Annulment, Widowed, Parent-Child, and Association (non-familial connections including pets).
Biological, Adopted, Foster, Step, Surrogate, Sperm Donor, and Egg Donor — each rendered with the correct clinical notation.
- Gender — Male, Female, Transgender (M/F), Nonbinary, Intersex, Unknown, Other
- Sexual Orientation — Heterosexual, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual, Asexual, Queer, Questioning
- Vital Status — Alive, Deceased, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Stillbirth, Abortion
- Medical Conditions — 12 categories with quadrant visualization: Heart Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Mental Health, Neurological, Respiratory, Autoimmune, Genetic Disorders, Reproductive, Digestive, Substance Use, Other
- Cultural Heritage — 11 visual fill patterns for mapping family heritage and ethnicity
- Religion — 9 faith traditions
- Social Class — Upper, Upper-Middle, Middle, Working, Lower
Switch between specialized views to analyze different dimensions of the family system on a single genogram:
- Relational View — Emotional dynamics overlay
- Medical View — Health condition mapping across generations
- Cultural View — Heritage and ethnicity patterns
- Social View — Socioeconomic factors
- Religious View — Faith and spiritual dimensions
- Location View — Geographic family distribution
- Family Group View — Household clustering
- Custom View — User-defined attribute overlays
Already have family data in genealogy software like Ancestry, FamilySearch, or Gramps? Import via GEDCOM 5.5.1 or 7.0 format. GenogramAI enriches basic genealogy data with AI-suggested emotional relationships, medical history, and clinical annotations — bridging the gap between genealogy and clinical genograms.
Export back to GEDCOM 7.0 with custom extensions for clinical data, making your work portable across platforms.
GenogramAI includes a custom hierarchical layout engine built specifically for genograms. Unlike generic graph layouts (force-directed, tree, etc.), it understands:
- Generational alignment (grandparents → parents → children on distinct levels)
- Spouse positioning (partners side-by-side, not scattered)
- Multi-partner handling (remarriage, affairs rendered clearly)
- Contour packing (tight, readable layouts even for large families)
The result: diagrams that look like what a trained clinician would draw by hand.
- Shareable links — Generate public URLs for any genogram
- Password protection — Restrict access for confidentiality
- Copy/export controls — Disable downloading for sensitive cases
- Community gallery — Browse examples: Famous Families, TV Shows, Movies, Historical Figures
- View analytics — Track how many times a shared genogram has been viewed
- Automatic cloud save — Work from any device, pick up where you left off
- Web app — No installation, runs in any modern browser
- Desktop app — Offline support via Electron
- Multi-language — Full interface in English, Spanish, French, German, and Chinese
- PDF & PNG export — High-quality output for reports, presentations, and clinical files
| Role | How They Use GenogramAI |
|---|---|
| Family Therapists (MFT) | Map multi-generational patterns, identify triangulation and enmeshment, track treatment progress across sessions |
| Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) | Document family systems for case files, identify risk factors, plan interventions, meet documentation requirements |
| Marriage & Family Counselors | Visualize couple dynamics within the broader family context, surface intergenerational influences |
| Psychiatrists & Medical Professionals | Track hereditary conditions, identify genetic risk patterns, document family medical history visually |
| Psychology & MSW Students | Learn genogram construction and family systems theory with AI guidance, complete coursework faster |
| Researchers | Collect and analyze family structure data, standardize genogram formats across studies |
| Genealogists | Enrich family trees with emotional dynamics, medical history, and relationship depth beyond names and dates |
| Supervisors & Educators | Review trainee genograms, teach McGoldrick notation, demonstrate family systems concepts |
- Text: Describe the family in your own words
- Image: Upload a photo of an existing genogram
- GEDCOM file: Import from genealogy software
- Blank canvas: Build manually with drag-and-drop
GenogramAI's AI reads your input and generates a complete, standards-compliant genogram with:
- Correct McGoldrick symbols for every person and relationship
- Medical quadrant markers where health data is mentioned
- Generational layout with automatic positioning
- Emotional relationship lines with proper notation
Chat with the AI to make changes:
- "Mark John's mother as deceased, cause of death breast cancer"
- "Add a conflictual relationship between Sarah and her mother-in-law"
- "Mike and his father have an estranged relationship"
- Generate clinical insights with one click
- Export as PDF or PNG for client files
- Share via secure link with optional password
- Publish to the community gallery
| Free | Pro | Unlimited | Institutional | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genograms | 2 | 50 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| AI Generation | Limited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Publishing | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Image Digitization | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud Sync | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Remove Watermark | — | — | Yes | Yes |
| Team Features | — | — | — | Yes |
Yes. The desktop app (available for Windows, macOS, and Linux) supports offline use.
GenogramAI follows the McGoldrick-Gerson-Petry notation system, the most widely used standard in family therapy and clinical practice worldwide. All symbols, line types, and conventions match the notation described in Genograms: Assessment and Treatment (McGoldrick, Gerson & Petry).
Yes. GenogramAI supports GEDCOM 5.5.1 and 7.0 import, the universal format used by all major genealogy platforms. After import, the AI can enrich your genealogy data with emotional relationships, medical markers, and clinical annotations.
GenogramAI uses Google Gemini 2.5 Flash with strict JSON schema validation. Every AI response is forced through typed schemas with validated enums, preventing hallucinated relationship types or malformed family structures. The output is clinically consistent and editable.
The Institutional plan supports team features. For individual plans, genograms can be shared via secure links for viewing.
The full interface is available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Chinese. The AI can understand family descriptions written in any language.
| Category | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | React, TypeScript, Vite |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion |
| AI | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| Backend | Supabase (Auth, PostgreSQL, Edge Functions) |
| Visualization | D3-Shape, Custom SVG Engine |
| Export | jsPDF, Canvas API |
| Desktop | Electron |
- Live App: app.genogramai.com
- Website: genogramai.com
- Support: [email protected]
GenogramAI — Making family systems visible.