How to Display Familial Relationships on a Diagram
This article explains how to create and display familial relationships on a diagram so that you can visualise parent, child, and spouse connections between individuals.
The steps vary slightly depending on whether you're drawing the relationship on the canvas or have already created it in your data.
Method 1: Drawing the Relationship on the Canvas
Before you start, make sure your diagram is open and both individuals are on the canvas.
-
Drag from the child entity to the parent entity and select Child Of — or drag from the parent entity to the child entity and select Parent Of. For spouse relationships, drag from one individual to the other and select Spouse Of.
StructureGram displays the following message: "The Child Of links are currently hidden in View Settings. The relationship was saved but won't appear on the diagram until you enable it."
-
Click Settings.
-
Select the Relationships tab.
-
Scroll down to Family Links.
-
Toggle on the relationship type you want to display: Parent, Child, or Spouse.
Method 2: Relationship Created as Data First
If you created the familial relationship in your data before opening a diagram, it won't appear on the diagram automatically — and you won't receive a notification. To display it:
- Open a diagram containing the two individuals.
- Click Settings.
- Select the Relationships tab.
- Scroll down to Family Links.
- Toggle on the relationship type you want to display: Parent, Child, or Spouse.
What You'll See
Once you toggle on a relationship type, the connection appears on the diagram as a labelled arrow. Enabling Parent shows a Parent Of arrow from the parent to the child; enabling Child shows a Child Of arrow from the child to the parent; enabling Spouse shows a Spouse Of connection between the two individuals.
Tips
- Familial relationships are reciprocal — you only need to create one direction. Drawing a Child Of relationship automatically saves the corresponding Parent Of relationship. There's no need to draw both.