Genograms are now used by various groups of people in a variety of fields. Genograms were later developed and popularized by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson through their book Genograms in Family Assessment (first published in 1985), 4th edition, Genograms: Assessment and Treatment, 2020, with McGoldrick, Petry & Gerson as authors). The same year Jack Bradt, who had been a student of Bowen published a Pamphlet through the Groome Center where he worked, which displayed the basic symbols used for family diagrams or genograms. Murray Bowen, who had been promoting the value of genograms family systems work. In their 1980 book, The Family Life Cycle Carter & McGoldrick included a genogram on the cover and a page on the genogram format, copyrighted to Dr. He claimed not to know where the concept of a genogram came from, but avowed that he did not invent it. Murray Bowen of the Georgetown Family Center developed the concept of the genogram, which he preferred to call a 'family diagram' as part of his family systems model in the 1970s.

It goes beyond a traditional family tree by allowing the user to visualize social patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships especially patterns that repeat over the generations. A genogram also known as a family diagram, is a pictorial display of a person's position in their family's hereditary and ongoing relationships.

Example of social work genogram