Divorce
Two slashes across a marriage line mean the couple are divorced. The year is written beside them, as in d ’97.
Easily confused with
How to read it
SAMHSA’s family therapy guide describes a divorce as two lines crossing through the line connecting the two spouses, and Washburn University’s guide as two parallel diagonal lines. One slash is a Separation. The Multicultural Family Institute’s sheet writes the dates in order along the line (m ’90 s ’95 d ’97). For a couple who divorce, remarry each other and divorce again, it adds remar ’00, rediv 02.
Also searched as: divorced genogram, divorce symbol, genogram divorce.
This explains what a symbol records on a genogram. Clinicians vary the notation, and a genogram’s own key takes precedence.
Where the slashes sit
In the University of North Dakota’s child welfare guide, the position of the slashes also records custody. Drawn on the marriage line between the father and the line down to the children, they set the father off from the children and show that the mother has custody.
Look-alikes
A Cutoff is also two short marks across a line, but they are upright and on a line drawn straight between two people, and they record that contact has ended, not a marriage. The medical pedigree marks a partnership that no longer exists with a break (//) in the relationship line.
Read next
- Next in Genogram symbolsChildrenChildren hang from their parents’ couple line: a line drops from it to each child, in birth order with the oldest on the left.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of EthiopiaEthiopia’s flag is green, yellow and red in equal horizontal stripes with a blue disc in the centre holding a yellow star of equal lines with yellow rays. Ethiopia’s Flag Proclamation makes the green labour, fertility and development, the yellow hope, justice and equality, and the red sacrifice and heroism for freedom and equality; the blue disc is peace and the star the unity of Ethiopia’s nations, nationalities and peoples.
More genogram symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy (Treatment Improvement Protocol 39), SAMHSA Publication No. PEP20-02-02-012, updated 2020, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (govinfo.gov), Chapter 4, Counselor Note: Talking to clients about genograms
- GenoGrams, Jay Memmott, Department of Social Work, Washburn University, Basic Symbols, slide 6
- QA Case Review: Genogram Resource, ND CFS Quality Assurance, revised November 2022, Children and Family Services Training Center, University of North Dakota, Step 3
- Standard Symbols for Genograms, The Multicultural Family Institute (copy on a PBworks course wiki), Page 1
- Practice resource-focused revision: Standardized pedigree nomenclature update centered on sex and gender inclusivity: A practice resource of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Robin L. Bennett, Kathryn Steinhaus French, Robert G. Resta and Jehannine Austin, Journal of Genetic Counseling 31 (2022): 1238–1248, National Society of Genetic Counselors (Wiley), Figure 3, Pedigree line definitions
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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