Your Family Tree Offers Clues to Who You Are Today

Use a family tree not only to discover who your ancestors were, but how they have passed on cutoms and behaviors that may be impacting your life today. “A man can’t make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree.” —Helen Keller A family tree in which branches represent different generations allows you to quickly and easily see the names of people your ancestors married, what children they had, and when they died. However, there is much that can be learned beyond those facts if you use a graphic representation that family therapists call a “genogram.” This is how it works. When interviewing a new client, the therapist asks lots of questions as he or she starts sketching a diagram of the present generation and two or three generations in the past. In addition to basic information of the dates of births, marriages, and deaths, there will also be information on who lived with whom after a divorce, serious physical and mental illnesses, occupations and education of family members, geographic moves and why those people moved, accidents, financial gains and losses, how long children lived at home, ethnic background and religious affiliation, etc. Combing through this information and looking for parallels through generations, there are almost always clues to a person’s present situation. This is because, for better or for worse, families pass down not only physical characteristics to the next generation, but also talents, culture, behaviors, and beliefs. For example, families in which there is a lot of divorce pass on permission to leave a bad relationship. That doesn’t mean that people in those families didn’t make any attempt to solve their problems within the framework of marriage, but it does indicate that parents in such homes didn’t model the communication and coping skills needed to stick out the rough times and negotiate issues effectively short of divorce. A similar situation occurs in cases where there are a lot of people who are in the genogram, but about whom little is known. The statement, “There was a rumor about Uncle Jake having a mistress and a baby the family didn’t acknowledge, but no one ever talked about it,” is significant. Why? It means that in such families the children have not learned open and honest communication – and old secrets have a way of coming back and disrupting current life in confusing ways. Fortunately, in studying genograms, it is possible to discover a family’s hidden legacy of strengths and weaknesses. In recognizing the former, you may come to appreciate the more positive qualities you’ve inherited. In understanding a family myth that supports destructive patterns, such as abusive behavior and alcoholism, you can more easily free yourself from negative family traditions. There is much you can learn from exploring your family’s genogram. If you want to learn more, there is an excellent book titled Genograms: The New Tool for Exploring the Personality, Career, and Love Patterns You Inherit by Emily Marlin, president of the New York Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. © Copyright 2005, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT