Kinship Diagram Template
Understand complex family relationships with a Kinship Diagram Template that keeps your relatives organized.
About the Kinship Diagram Template
Understanding how we relate to distant relatives is simple using a kinship diagram. It allows you to map out relationships without getting hung up on specific names or other pieces of information. While most commonly used by anthropologists and genealogists, a kinship diagram can be a useful tool for anyone interested in family relationships.
Keep reading to learn more about our Kinship Diagram Template.
What is a kinship diagram?
A kinship diagram is a chart outlining relationships in a family, society, or culture. In many ways, kinship diagrams are similar to family trees. But instead of listing specific names or modeling the diagram after one family, kinship diagrams are used more generally to understand how most families in a culture work.
Kinship diagram charts are most commonly used in the field of anthropology. Researchers can use kinship notation to quickly sketch social relationships as they interview subjects.
But you don’t have to be a professional anthropologist to get use out of a kinship diagram — anyone interested in family history or genealogy might find a use for it.
Benefits of a kinship diagram
Kinship diagrams are an easy way to see how family, cultural, and societal patterns play out. Often, a kinship diagram helps convey not just the family roles themselves but which relatives hold the most influence over the family.
You can also use a kinship diagram to navigate complex family roles. If you’re trying to understand third or fourth cousins, a kinship diagram can help you see where they fall in relation to you without getting hung up on specific names.
Create your own kinship diagram
You can get started on a kinship diagram very quickly. Simply open up the Kinship Diagram Template and follow the steps below:
Step 1: Add “Ego,” or the starting point of your kinship diagram.
All of the relatives in the diagram will be listed in relation to Ego. When you add people to the kinship diagram, you can use the following shapes to denote gender:
Triangle: Male
Circle: Female
Square: Nonspecific gender
When you add in Ego on our Kinship Diagram Template, it will default to blue. Filling in Ego helps you find the starting point of your kinship diagram even when it’s incredibly complex.
Step 2: Build out Ego’s immediate relationships.
This can include parents, siblings, children, and partners. Be sure to use the right shapes to represent the appropriate gender for each relative.
Show connections between relatives with solid lines. A horizontal line between two people represents marriage. A vertical line descending from a marriage line represents children.
To represent siblings, draw a horizontal line at the bottom of a childline. Then, draw an additional vertical line for each sibling.
Step 3: Continue to build out the diagram using kinship notation.
Add grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more until you have a full picture of your family system.
Step 4: Mark various life events.
If you’re mapping out a real family system rather than a representative one, you can use kinship notation to mark deaths, divorces, and other life events.
Place an X over the shape for any deceased relatives. You can also use a / to note marriages that ended due to divorce or death.
Step 5: Add notes or comments to record additional information.
You can turn your kinship diagram into a family tree diagram, genogram, or pedigree chart by adding more information about life events and family relationships. If you prefer, Miro has a ready-to-use genogram template or a pedigree template that you can get started with.
If you’re working with other family members or a dedicated genealogist, you can invite them to collaborate on your kinship chart by adding their own findings. As you work together to learn more about your family system, you can easily share and edit the kinship diagram to meet your needs.
Use case for a kinship diagram
When it comes to family history research, a kinship diagram can serve as a great starting point before diving into a full-fledged family tree. Instead of getting lost in the weeds of finding your great-grandmother’s birth certificate, you can use Miro's easy family tree builder to sketch out your entire family system as you plan the best way to approach your family research.
Kinship diagrams can be used for much quicker purposes too. If you’re trying to figure out how exactly a distant relative fits into your family tree or want to know the precise term for that relation, a kinship diagram provides an easy visual to help you find the answer.
Who can use a Kinship Diagram Template?
If you’re interested in understanding a family or social relationship in any context, then you can use the Kinship Diagram Template. Because kinship diagram charts are simplified and standardized, they are a great way to dip your toes into genealogy and family research. You can get a handle on how people are related to each other before diving into public records and family documents.
What is kinship notation?
Kinship notation is a system of symbols that anthropologists and genealogists use to map our family and social structures. In kinship notation, shapes represent gender — triangle for male, circle for female, and square for nonspecific — and lines represent immediate relationships. In kinship notation, you can also use X or / to indicate deaths or broken relationships.
What’s the difference between a family tree and a kinship diagram?
A kinship diagram maps out broad family and social structures as they most commonly exist in a culture. A family tree is a specific, personal history of one family that includes information about births, deaths, marriages, and other life events.
Get started with this template right now.
Incident Management Process Flowchart Template
The Incident Management Process Flowchart Template in Miro is designed to streamline and clarify the process of managing incidents within an organization. This template serves as a visual guide that outlines the steps involved in incident management, from the initial declaration to the final review. It is a living document, continuously evolving based on feedback and lessons learned from past incidents, ensuring that the process remains up-to-date with best practices. By defining incidents as disruptions requiring a coordinated response to restore service levels, the template emphasizes the importance of a structured, organized, and timely approach. It covers various phases such as Incident Declaration, Assessment, Response, Communication, and Review, providing a clear framework for teams to follow.
Insightful Venn
Works best for:
Venn Diagram
Discover insights and visualize data relationships with the Insightful Venn template. This tool helps you compare multiple datasets, identify intersections, and understand unique and common elements. Use it for data analysis, research, and presentations to communicate complex information effectively. Perfect for analysts, educators, and researchers aiming to convey data-driven insights visually.
Influence Diagram Template
Works best for:
Business Management, Decision Making, Diagrams
See the big picture of any business decision with this Influence Diagram Template. You’ll define the decision you have to make and brainstorm everything that could impact it. When you build connections between these factors, you’ll be able to put the right amount of weight into each one as you make your decision.
Miro x AWS: Accelerate your cloud journey
Works best for:
Diagramming
The Miro x AWS: Accelerate your cloud journey template offers a visual framework for planning and executing cloud migration and optimization projects using Amazon Web Services (AWS). It provides elements for mapping out cloud architectures, migration strategies, and cost optimization initiatives. This template enables teams to collaborate effectively, align on objectives, and accelerate their cloud journey with AWS services. By promoting collaboration and alignment, the Miro x AWS template empowers organizations to leverage AWS cloud technologies efficiently and achieve their business objectives effectively.
Security Automations for AWS WAF Template
The Security Automations for AWS WAF template is designed to streamline the process of enhancing the security of your AWS applications. It allows teams to collaboratively design, visualize, and refine AWS WAF configurations to protect against common web exploits effectively. This template includes various components such as automated deployment pipelines, instance schedulers, and serverless image handlers, providing a robust framework for managing AWS WAF security automations. By using this template, teams can improve collaboration, achieve a clear visual representation of their AWS WAF configurations, enhance efficiency in managing AWS WAF rules, and customize the template to meet specific application security needs.
Breadboard (UI Flow Diagram)
Works best for:
Diagramming
The Breadboard (UI Flow Diagram) template offers a visual framework for designing and prototyping user interfaces (UIs) using the breadboard method. It provides elements for arranging UI components and defining user interactions. This template enables designers and developers to create interactive UI prototypes quickly and iteratively, facilitating user testing and feedback. By promoting rapid prototyping and experimentation, the Breadboard (UI Flow Diagram) empowers teams to design intuitive and user-friendly digital experiences effectively.