GenogramMaker

Build family genograms as plain Elixir data, then render them to Graphviz DOT or Mermaid.

A genogram is a family diagram: people (with sex and vital status), the unions between them (marriage, divorce, cohabitation, …) with their children, and the emotional bonds that connect individuals (close, conflict, cutoff, …). Describe one with a small, pipeline-friendly API and turn it into diagram source you can render with Graphviz or drop straight into Markdown.

Installation

Add genogram_maker to your deps in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:genogram_maker, "~> 0.1.0"}]
end

Usage

GenogramMaker.new()
|> GenogramMaker.add_person("dad", :male, name: "John", birth: 1948, death: 2009)
|> GenogramMaker.add_person("mom", :female, name: "Mary", birth: 1950)
|> GenogramMaker.add_person("kid", :female, name: "Ada", proband: true)
|> GenogramMaker.add_union("dad", "mom", type: :marriage, children: ["kid"])
|> GenogramMaker.add_bond("dad", "kid", :conflict)
|> GenogramMaker.to_dot()

produces:

digraph genogram {
  rankdir=TB;
  node [fontname="Helvetica"];
  edge [dir=none];
  p0 [label="John\n1948–2009", shape=square, style=filled, fillcolor="#dddddd"];
  p1 [label="Mary\nb. 1950", shape=circle];
  p2 [label="Ada", shape=circle, peripheries=2];
  u0 [shape=point, width=0.03, label=""];
  { rank=same; p0; u0; p1; }
  p0 -> u0;
  p1 -> u0;
  u0 -> p2;
  p0 -> p2 [color="#c62828", label="conflict", constraint=false];
}

Pipe through dot -Tsvg (or any Graphviz renderer) to get the diagram. The same genogram renders to Mermaid with GenogramMaker.to_mermaid/1, ready to paste into a Markdown code fence:

flowchart TB
    p0["John<br/>1948–2009"]
    p1(("Mary<br/>b. 1950"))
    p2(("Ada"))
    u0(["married"])
    p0 --- u0
    p1 --- u0
    u0 --- p2
    p0 ---|conflict| p2

Conventions

On render, standard genogram conventions are applied:

Sex decides the shape — :male is a square, :female a circle, :unknown a diamond.
Vital status — a :death year marks someone deceased; deceased people are shaded and the death year is shown.
Proband — proband: true marks the index person with a double outline.
Unions — :marriage, :divorce, :separation, :cohabitation, :engagement. Divorce and separation add // and / markers; cohabitation is dashed and engagement dotted.
Bonds — :close, :distant, :conflict, :hostile, :cutoff, :fused, drawn as non-structural coloured lines so they never distort the generational layout.

People referenced by a union or bond are created automatically (with unknown sex) if they have not been added yet, so the pipeline stays compact.

About

GenogramMaker is maintained by the team behind AutoGenogram, an AI genogram maker and analyzer. If you would rather describe a family in plain English and let AI draw the diagram, try the AI genogram generator; this library is its code-first companion for producing genogram source programmatically.

License

Released under the MIT License.

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