THE genealogy it is a science that studies the origin, evolution and spread of several generations of a family. Based on information sought from documents and certificates of parents, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents, people are able to discover their ancestors and when and where they were born. Visiting notary offices, churches, public archives, museums and libraries can also help in the search for more information.
From this search it is possible to build a family tree with names, dates and places where our ancestors walked, so that they are kept alive in the memory of their descendants.
The family tree can also be called a pedigree (from latin heredium, inheritance), which is the graphical representation of kinship relationships between individuals in a family. In the pedigree, each individual is represented by a symbol, which shows their particular characteristics and the kinship relationship with others. Generally, males are represented by squares, while females are represented by a circle. Marriage, in the biological sense of procreation, is represented by a horizontal line uniting the couple, and the children these marriages are indicated by vertical lines joined to the couple's horizontal line, as shown in the figure below.
Symbols used in the construction of a pedigree
The pedigrees are very used in genetic problems, and in the case of the human species, the pedigree construction is important for the verification. the pattern of inheritance of traits, making it easier for the geneticist to know whether a phenotypic trait is hereditary or not, and how this trait is inherited.
By Paula Louredo
Graduated in Biology