A diagram showing how members of a family are related to each other.
Information from a family tree (medical pedigree) can be important in making diagnoses and assisting clinical management. There is international agreement that standardised pedigree symbols should be used, to ensure that health professionals throughout the world can share, understand and interpret family history information.
Taking and drawing a genetic family history may involve asking for information on many members of a family, or may be targeted to detect a family pattern of a particular condition, according to the clinical question.
The NHS National Genetics Education & Development Centre has developed a great number of resources to assist health professionals in taking and drawing a genetic family history. "Taking and drawing a family history" is a collection of factsheets -
