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| Yassine Mrabet, Wikimedia Commons under public domain |
When you’re collecting
your genealogy information, it’s also important to learn your family’s health
histories. Your doctor can use that data to uncover hereditary health problems
and how they may affect you and your family.
To start, you want to
create health portraits for yourself, your children, siblings, parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Some of the basic data you should
collect include: ethnic and racial background; major illnesses and chronic
health problems; surgeries and hospitalizations; medications, immunizations;
lifestyle habits (diet, weight, exercise, smoking and other addictions);
emotional and behavioral problems; and cause of death. It’s also important to
add birth and death dates as well as age at onset or diagnosis for each health
event.
Some genealogy software
programs track medical conditions and DNA results, such as Legacy Family Tree,
RootsMagic, and Family Tree Maker. In addition, you can use:
- Cleveland Clinic’s Health & Your Family
Tree, a simple form to fill out for
members of your family
- The Surgeon General’s My Family Health
Portrait tool
- Genetic Alliance’s Does It Run In the Family
tool
- GenoPro, a family tree software program that specializes in
medical history and genograms. Instead of basic pedigree charts, GenoPro
creates genograms, with detailed health histories, emotional
relationships, social relationships, even household configurations. For
fun, check out Harry Potter’s tree, based on the J.K. Rowling book series.
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