Family Pedigree 

Type

Name Generator, Edge Generator, Name Interpreter

Creates

People and the family relationships between them, with attribute data

Uses prompts

Yes

Configure in

• Architect ClassicArchitect Classic (not available)
• Architect

Run in

• Interviewer ClassicInterviewer Classic (not available)
• Interviewer
• Fresco

Requires protocol schema 8 or later.

The Family Pedigree is an interface for collecting family network data. The participant draws their family as a family tree on a single canvas. They start as the only person on it, add each person's parents, siblings, partners and children, and describe each new person as they go. The interface lays the tree out for them.

Each family member is saved as a person of the type you choose for the stage, and each relationship as a connection of the relationship type you choose, together with the attributes described below.

The canvas shows the participant's family: the participant, and everyone connected to them through the stage's relationships, however indirectly. Other stages can add people of the same person type who are not family, such as friends or colleagues. They are not drawn on the canvas and the stage never changes them, even if another stage tied them to the participant with a different kind of connection, except to clear a relationship to the participant it recorded while they were family. They are not given labels, not counted toward completeness, and cannot be selected for a nomination prompt. Everything the participant adds on the canvas is connected to them, so nobody they draw leaves the family.

How participants build their family

The prompt

The prompt you write appears above the canvas while the participant draws their family. Use it to invite them to add the people in their family, and to tell them how. If you add nomination prompts, they follow once the family is drawn, one at a time.

The canvas

The participant can drag the canvas to pan it, and zoom with the mouse wheel, by pinching, with the + and − keys, or with the buttons in the small View controls toolbar beside the main one: zoom in, zoom out and Show the whole family. People can be drawn from 30% to 250% of their natural size. The arrow keys move between the people on the canvas.

The stage opens with the whole family centered in the space between the prompt and the toolbar, drawn as large as it fits, but never larger than its natural size and never smaller than the furthest the zoom buttons go. A family too large to fit even then is centered, and the rest of it is reached by panning. The view returns to the whole family whenever the participant presses Show the whole family, moves to another prompt, or closes the side panel after adding or editing someone, so where they had dragged or zoomed the canvas is not kept. Until they move the view again, it is fitted afresh as the family grows. Selecting a person centers them, with their partners, their children and the person the panel was opened from, in the part of the canvas that the side panel leaves uncovered, zooming out if they do not all fit. The side panel opens at the right edge of the screen, or at the left edge in an interview shown in a right-to-left language.

Each person is labeled inside their symbol. The participant is labeled "You", and anyone else is labeled with their name. A family member the participant has not named is labeled by how they are related to the participant, using the stage's wording: "Maternal grandmother", "Sperm parent" or "Cousin’s son". A relative reached through both parents, such as a donor to both, is labeled without a side of the family. A step or social parent is labeled with the plain parent word ("Mother", "Father" or "Parent"), and is labeled a step-parent ("Stepmother") only when they are, or were, the partner of one of the child's biological or adoptive parents and did not carry the child; their child is labeled the same way ("Daughter" or "Stepdaughter"). Where several unnamed people would share a label, each is told apart by a relative, as in "Sister (partner of Tom)", or else numbered in the order they were added. Someone with no everyday kinship word is described through a single relative, the nearest on the way from the participant who is known by a name or a plain kinship word, as in "Isaac’s grandfather" or "Cousin’s grandson", rather than through a relative who is told apart or described in turn. These are the labels saved as their names when the participant leaves the stage (see Name), so later stages show each person as the canvas did. A long kinship word breaks across lines inside a symbol only at points Network Canvas sets for each language it supplies wording in, such as between "grand" and "mother". A word you write with soft hyphens in the stage's wording breaks only at those hyphens, so soft hyphens can set the break points in any language.

How the family is drawn

The interface lays the family out according to standard pedigree nomenclature (Bennett et al., 2022), and the participant never positions anyone. A person recorded as adopted is drawn between brackets.

Partners are joined by a line between them, broken by a short mark when the partnership has ended, and their children hang from a sibling line below, joined to it by a line of descent from the partnership line. Two parents of a child who were never recorded as partners, such as a birth mother and the unnamed stand-in for the father, or the two birth parents of an adopted child, are joined by no line between their symbols, so nothing in the drawing says they were partners. They are seated side by side, a line comes down from each of them, and the two lines join into one below them, which runs on to the child, or to the sibling line when there are several children. No line starts from the space between them. Only when someone has to sit between them is each joined to the children by a line of their own instead.

A sibship's line of descent comes from the person who carried every child in it, together with their partner when that partner is the children's other genetic parent. When no one person carried all of the children, it comes from their biological parents, and whoever carried some of them is joined to those children by a line of their own. Children carried by a gestational surrogate hang from her, unless hanging them from their genetic parents makes fewer lines cross, in which case they hang from their genetic parents and the surrogate is joined to them by a line of her own. A child with no biological parent recorded hangs from whoever carried them, so twins she carried share one sibling line.

Anyone whose tie to a child the line of descent does not show is joined to the child by a line of their own: a donor, a surrogate who does not carry the line of descent, a step or social parent, or the birth parent of an adopted child. A line for a tie of birth, a gamete or the pregnancy, is drawn solid, and a line for a tie of raising, adoptive or social, is dashed. A parent who raises the child and also carried them is drawn as the child's carrier, with a solid line. Each of these lines runs straight from the center of its owner's symbol toward the center of the child's, so that the symbols hide its ends, and bends only to pass a symbol in its way. Lines that cross do so plainly. People are seated so that lines can run straight, even at the cost of a crossing. A donor or surrogate who helped with only some of a sibship's children has a line to each of those children, and one who helped with all of them has a single line that joins the sibling line where the line of descent meets it. A line into an adopted child crosses the bracket to the center of the child's symbol.

A child adopted into a family shares one solid sibling line with the family's other children, whether or not the adoptive parents are recorded as partners, and only the line up to the adopted child is dashed. The sibling line and the line of descent are solid whenever any child in the sibship has a tie of birth to the parents. When none does, as when every child was adopted, they are drawn in the style of the children's tie, so a family of adopted children hangs from a dashed line of descent and sibling line.

A donor or surrogate is drawn on the row of the parents of the child they helped conceive or carry, beside those parents, and never on the child's own row. No mark is drawn for the role itself, but a screen reader reads it out with the person: an egg or sperm donor, an egg donor who carried the pregnancy, or a surrogate. When a donor or surrogate cannot share the parents' row, because they are one of the parents' own parents or children, the child is drawn a row below them instead. A child adopted or raised by a relative, such as a brother or sister, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, or a cousin, stays with their birth family, with brackets around their symbol if they were adopted, and a dashed line from whoever raises them. A relative who raises them alone, or two who are not partners, each has a line of their own. A couple who raise them together, such as grandparents who adopted their granddaughter, have one line: it leaves the couple's own line of descent, the line that drops from their partnership line to their children, or, when they have no children of their own on the canvas, the middle of their partnership line. Anyone joined to the child's birth parents through birth, donation or partnership counts as a relative, except a birth parent's own partner, who raises the child in that parent's family.

Twins sit side by side and hang from one point on their sibling line: identical twins are joined by a short bar between their lines, fraternal twins have no mark, and twins whose zygosity is not known are marked with a question mark.

Adding relatives

Four buttons appear around a person when the mouse comes to rest on them, while keyboard focus is on them, or, on a touch screen, after they are tapped and their details panel is closed. Once the buttons are showing, moving to someone else moves them at once. When the stage opens with the participant alone on the canvas, the buttons are already showing around them. The buttons are drawn above everything else on the stage, the prompt and the toolbar included. They add a Parent (above), a Sibling (to the left), a Partner (to the right) or a Child (below). A family is drawn the same way round in every language, so in an interview shown in a right-to-left language, such as Arabic or Hebrew, siblings are still added to the left and partners to the right, and the arrow keys move between the buttons as they are drawn.

Choosing one opens a side panel, titled for the relationship ("Add your parent", or "Add a parent of Tom"), where the participant describes the new person one group of questions at a time: who the person is, how they are related, and then any additional person fields. The new person is drawn on the canvas while the panel is open. No answer is chosen in advance. Choosing an answer from a list of options moves on to the next group by itself, after a short pause, once no later question in the group is still waiting for an answer and no required question in it is left unanswered. Typed answers and ticked boxes never move the panel on. The group's button reads Skip while every question in the group is optional and none is answered, and Continue otherwise. Pressing Continue with a required question unanswered keeps the group open and shows why. Back returns to the group before, with its answers kept. Save, in the last group, adds the person to the family, and Cancel discards them.

When a new relationship needs people who are not yet on the canvas, the interface adds them without a name, for the participant to fill in later. For example, adding a sibling to someone who has no parents on the canvas also adds an egg parent and a sperm parent (or a biological mother and a biological father, with the everyday wording) for the participant to fill in later. An unnamed person added this way is recorded as female or male at birth only when that follows from whether they gave the egg or the sperm, and is never given a gender identity.

Everyone has two genetic parents, one who gave the egg and one the sperm, so whenever a person has one genetic parent recorded (a biological parent or a donor), the interface adds an unnamed stand-in for the other. Adding a biological mother also adds an unnamed father, for example. A stand-in keeps the participant's answers about who shares that parent: two siblings with the same unknown father share one stand-in and are full siblings, while a half sibling has a stand-in of their own. When the participant removes or disconnects a genetic parent, a stand-in takes their place, so the difference between full and half siblings is never lost. A stand-in is replaced by the next genetic parent the participant records in that place, for everyone the stand-in stood in for: a father recorded for one of two siblings who share an unknown father is recorded as the father of both. A stand-in's sex at birth follows the gamete the other genetic parent gave. Stand-ins stand in only for genetic parents: someone with only adoptive or step parents, or a single adoptive parent, is never given one. A stand-in is never recorded as anyone's partner, and cannot be removed, because another would take their place. A stand-in the participant names or describes (choosing their sex at birth included), or gives relatives of their own, is a person in their own right from then on.

Describing a person

Selecting a person with a click, a tap, or the Enter or Space key opens their details in the side panel, titled "About you" for the participant and "About" with the person's name or label for anyone else. All of the questions show at once, and Save saves the changes. The panel, like the panel for adding someone, asks in this order:

1. The person's own details: their name, their gender identity if the stage asks about it, and their sex assigned at birth. The name is optional (see Name). The participant is not asked their own name, because they are shown as "You". Sex assigned at birth is a required question, offering female, male, intersex, don't know and prefer not to say. Gender identity, where the stage asks about it, is required as well and offers the options you define, so give it an option for a relative whose gender identity the participant does not know (see Gender identity).
2. When editing a person, and only if the stage has a completeness requirement, whether the person has siblings and whether they have children, where none are recorded.
3. How the person is related to the others (see below).
4. Any additional person fields you have added.

When adding a person, the panel asks how they are related to the person they are being added to:

• A parent: what kind of parent they are. Once the kind is chosen, it asks whether they carried the pregnancy, unless they cannot have. The question is required, and its "Don't know" answer records nothing. An adoptive parent is not asked, and is recorded as not having carried the pregnancy, because someone else usually carried an adopted child; an adoptive parent who did carry the pregnancy can be recorded as having carried it from the child's own panel. A surrogate always carried it. For a biological, adoptive, or step or social parent, it then asks whether they are the partner of another parent, which is never assumed, and if so whether the partnership is current. Where the person has siblings, it asks which of them the new parent is also a parent of. When someone else is already recorded as having carried the person, answering that the new parent did replaces them, as the newest answer wins (see the gestational carrier attribute under Relationships). When a surrogate is recorded as having carried the person, the new parent cannot have, so the question is asked instead about the siblings chosen who have nobody recorded as carrying them.
• A partner: whether the partnership is current.
• A child: who the other parent is (one of the person's partners, someone not shown yet, or no other parent); what kind of child they are; for a biological child with another parent, which of the two are the child's biological parents (a parent who is not one is added as a step or social parent); for a step-child or an adopted child, whether the other parent is the child's biological parent; and who carried the pregnancy, which is required. Someone else usually carried an adopted child, so for an adopted child it is asked only when the other parent is the child's biological parent, and only that parent is offered. A child can be biological, adopted, a step-child, a child conceived with an egg or sperm the person donated (which records the person as the child's donor), or a child the person carried as a surrogate (which records the person as a surrogate who carried the pregnancy). The other parent of a donor or surrogate child is the child's biological parent, assumed to be someone not yet on the canvas until the participant chooses otherwise.
• A sibling: which parents they share. The person's egg or sperm donors are offered too, so a sibling who shares only a donor can be added, and so is the surrogate who carried the person, who is then recorded as having carried the sibling. Someone with no parents recorded is asked which of the unnamed parents added for them the sibling shares, and whether the surrogate carried the sibling too. It then asks whether the sibling is those parents' biological or adopted child (someone a parent raises as a step-child is a step-sibling, added as the child of their own parent), and, for a biological sibling who shares parents not all of whom could be their genetic parents (two mothers, for example), which of them are, asking for a second one while the first answer leaves more than one who could be. It asks whether the sibling is the person's twin (identical, fraternal, or not known which), and, when someone is recorded as having carried the person, only once the sibling shares them. Where the two cannot be identical, because they have different sexes at birth or do not share both genetic parents, it offers only "No" and "Yes, fraternal (non-identical) twins". A twin is recorded as carried by whoever is recorded as having carried their twin, without being asked. Otherwise, a twin whose twin's carrier is not known included, it asks who carried the pregnancy, which is required. An adopted sibling is not asked who carried them, and is asked whether they are a twin only when the person was adopted by every parent the two share, as twins adopted together are. Every answer the form accepts makes the new person a sibling, sharing a genetic or adoptive parent: a step-parent or the surrogate, chosen alone, is refused, with a message asking the participant to choose a parent the two share as well, or to add the person as the child of their own parent instead.

When editing a person, the panel asks about their existing partnerships, and whether each is current; what kind of parent each of their parents is ("What kind of parent is Rob to you?"); who carried the pregnancy, as one choice among the parents who could have carried it, or "Someone else, or I don't know", which is not asked while one of the parents is a surrogate; and which of their siblings are their twins, with whether each pair is identical, fraternal, or not known which. Two twins who cannot be identical are recorded as fraternal without being asked.

The kinds of parent a participant can choose are biological, adoptive, step or social, egg or sperm donor, and surrogate. Any kind of parent can also be recorded as having carried the pregnancy: a biological parent who gave birth, an adoptive or step parent who did (such as a legal co-mother who carried the participant), or a donor who did (a traditional surrogate). A surrogate is someone who carried the pregnancy without giving a gamete or raising the child, so a surrogate always carried it. The interface rules out answers that contradict each other. No more than two people (biological parents or donors) can be recorded as someone's genetic parents, and they cannot both be recorded as female at birth or both as male at birth. Only one person can be recorded as having carried someone's pregnancy, and twins share theirs: answering who carried one twin answers it for the others. Where a participant corrects a mistake, the newest answer wins. Choosing, for a new parent or a new connection, that they carried the pregnancy records nobody else as having carried it: whoever was recorded before is left with nothing recorded about carrying. Choosing a biological parent or donor where a biological parent with the same sex at birth (female or male) is already recorded asks, in the same form, what kind of parent that biological parent is to the child instead. The hint under the answer says what choosing it will change, and Undo reverses it once saved. A surrogate on record, or a donor with the same sex at birth, still makes those answers unavailable, with the reason beneath them. Someone recorded as male at birth cannot be recorded as having carried a pregnancy. A sex at birth answer itself is never unavailable because of these rules, except male for a surrogate, so a participant can correct one saved by mistake: the newest answer wins. Choosing a sex at birth that contradicts what is recorded shows, under the field, what saving it will change. On saving, the record that the person carried a pregnancy is removed, and the sex at birth of another genetic parent recorded with the same sex is cleared, each to be answered again. Undo reverses the change. Identical twins have the same genetic parents, so answering that two siblings are identical gives both of them the genetic parents either has recorded, as the hint under the answer says.

Triplets and other multiple births are recorded as twins. Adding a twin of someone who already has twins makes the new sibling a twin of each of them: identical to all of them only when every pair is identical, fraternal when any pair is fraternal, and otherwise not known which. Twins recorded from the person's panel are recorded pair by pair.

A person other than the participant can be removed from the family with the panel's Delete button, which a stand-in's panel does not have. Removing someone also removes their connections to other people. Anyone connected to the participant only through that person would no longer be part of the family, so they are removed too: the confirmation names them before anything is removed.

Connecting people already on the canvas

The toolbar has three tools, each named by a tooltip. Add and edit is the default and does everything described above. With Connect, the participant selects one person and then another, and a menu asks how they are related: partners, former partners, or one as the parent of the other and, if so, which kind of parent. Each kind of parent can be chosen as it is or as having carried the pregnancy; choosing it as it is leaves carrying unrecorded, unless that parent cannot have carried the child. A kind the family rules out is shown as unavailable, with the reason beneath it. With Disconnect, they select two people who are connected and confirm; both people stay on the canvas and only the connection between them is removed. A connection that is the only link between the participant and someone cannot be removed, because that person would leave the family: the participant is told who, and can connect them another way first. A pair of people can have at most one connection.

Nomination prompts

While a nomination prompt is showing, the family can no longer be changed. The participant selects everyone the question applies to, and selects a person again to deselect them. Anyone the prompt leaves out because of their sex assigned at birth is shown as unavailable and cannot be selected. The tools and the add buttons are not shown, and the participant can still pan and zoom.

Undoing a change

Undo and Redo buttons in the toolbar take back the participant's last change to the family and bring it back again. Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on a Mac) undoes, and Ctrl+Shift+Z (⇧⌘Z) or Ctrl+Y redoes. Each saved change is one step, however many people and connections it touched: adding someone, with any parents or stand-ins added alongside them; saving changes to someone's details; removing someone, with anyone removed along with them; connecting or disconnecting two people; answering a question in the completeness checklist; and, during a nomination prompt, selecting or deselecting someone. Undoing a change takes back only what that change did, so anything else the participant has done since stays as it is.

The history belongs to the prompt being answered, and starts afresh each time the participant reaches a prompt. Undo and Redo are unavailable while the side panel is open, while the stage waits for its passphrase, and while the participant is choosing the words to use.

Configuring the stage

The stage editor in Architect has a section for each part of this. Start by choosing the Node type the people are, which is the person type in your codebook. While a Narrative Pedigree stage draws this stage's family, the node type cannot be changed.

Prompt

The text shown above the canvas while the participant draws their family. Say how to add relatives, for example: "Let's map out your family. Tap or click a person to add their details, and hover over them (or tap them) to add their relatives."

Person attributes

Choose the attributes of the person type that the interface records about every family member. For each, you can pick an existing attribute or create a new one from the picker.

Name

The interface labels a person by their name when they have one, and a person who has been named is never labeled with a kinship word. A typed name is shown exactly as it was typed, on the canvas, in panel titles, hints and announcements, and in what a screen reader reads out, and nothing is ever added to it: two relatives given the same name are both shown by that name. Where the stage's wording fills a name or label into a question, a hint, a panel title, the connect menu, a confirmation or the progress list, it is shown as piped text: tinted, so that it stands apart from the fixed wording, and read by a screen reader as part of the sentence. The wording Network Canvas supplies shows these values without quotation marks, except in German, French and Chinese, where a single name or label keeps them. The participant is always labeled "You", and is not asked their own name.

A participant may not know a relative's name, so they can always leave it blank. When they leave the stage, the interface saves a label as the name of everyone they left unnamed, including any unnamed parents it added, so that later stages can show who is who. The label is the person's kinship word in the participant's language and the stage's wording, such as "Maternal grandmother". Labels are distinct from each other and from every typed name: where two people would share a word, each is told apart by a relative, as in "Sister (partner of Tom)", or else numbered, as in "Sister 2". If the participant comes back to the stage, those people are unnamed again: their labels follow the family as it changes, and are saved afresh when the participant leaves. A name given to one of them on a later stage, such as a form, is theirs and is kept. The participant is never given a label, and any name their own person already holds from elsewhere in the interview is left as it is.

The side panel asks for the name with a question and a hint beneath it. Network Canvas supplies both: "Name (optional)", and a hint saying that a first name or nickname is fine and that a person left unnamed is shown by how they are related to the participant. Change them under Name question and Name question guidance. The interview always shows both, so neither can be left empty.

The name attribute's validation rules apply to the names the participant types, and you can set them in the Validation section under the name control. If the attribute is unique, a typed name cannot repeat another typed name of a person of the stage's type. The Required answer rule is not offered here, because every family member ends up with a name: the interface fills in anyone left unnamed, so a blank name is never a missing detail. A required rule the attribute already has can be switched off there. Saved labels are not checked against the other rules, such as a maximum length.

If your study encrypts the name attribute, the participant is asked for their passphrase when they reach the stage. Until they enter it, they cannot add or change people, and anyone with an encrypted name is shown by how they are related to the participant. The same happens if the passphrase does not unlock the names already saved. Names the participant types, and the labels saved for anyone left unnamed, are stored encrypted with that passphrase.

Sex assigned at birth

The interface uses sex assigned at birth to name biological parents and donors, to work out who could have carried a pregnancy, to check that a child's two biological parents are possible, to choose everyday kinship words when gender identity is not asked, and to limit a nomination prompt to one sex assigned at birth. It is asked separately from gender identity.

The answers participants choose from are the options of the sex assigned at birth attribute, labeled as the codebook labels them, and so are the kinds of parent they choose from, which are the options of the relationship kind attribute. When you create either attribute, Architect fills in the labels in each of your protocol's languages that Network Canvas has wording for. When you add a language, it fills in Network Canvas's label for each answer that has none in that language, even one you have reworded in your other languages, and when you change the language your text is recorded as, a label that is still Network Canvas's becomes its label in the language you chose, or is removed, for you to write, where Network Canvas has none in that language. A default language Network Canvas has no wording for gets the English labels, which you can translate. You can reword and translate them like any other text, but none can be left blank. Where the participant connects two people and can say that the parent carried the pregnancy, they see your label for that kind of parent followed by "(carried the pregnancy)".

Which parent gave the egg or the sperm

The interface never asks which gamete a biological parent or donor gave. It works it out from sex assigned at birth, by one rule that the kinship words and the Narrative Pedigree both follow. For each of a child's genetic parents (biological parents and donors):

1. A parent recorded female at birth gave the egg, and one recorded male gave the sperm. Sex assigned at birth decides this, whatever the person's gender identity: a trans man recorded female at birth gave the egg.
2. A parent recorded intersex, don't know or prefer not to say, or not yet answered, gave the other gamete when the child's other genetic parent is recorded female or male. Paired with a parent recorded male, an intersex parent gave the egg.
3. Otherwise the gamete is not known: when a child has a single genetic parent who is neither female nor male at birth, or two genetic parents who are both neither.

Because a child has at most two genetic parents, at most one recorded female at birth and one recorded male, the rule never finds two eggs or two sperm.

The model cannot record some families exactly. A gamete the participant knows but whose giver's sex is not known (for example an anonymous sperm donor recorded as "don't know", where the child's other genetic parent is not recorded female or male either) is recorded as not known. A rare difference of sex development where someone recorded female or male at birth gave the other gamete cannot be recorded as such; recording their sex at birth as intersex lets the rule work out their gamete instead. Mitochondrial donation, which involves three genetic contributors, cannot be drawn.

Gender identity

A new stage asks about gender identity. Turn Ask about gender identity off if your study does not need it. When it is on:

• The participant is asked each person's gender identity in the side panel, and must answer it before the person is saved. Someone the interface adds without asking, such as a stand-in, counts as missing a detail until it is answered (see Completeness). Include an option such as "Don't know" for relatives whose gender identity the participant does not know.
• You choose a categorical attribute to hold the answer and define its options. When you create a new attribute, Architect suggests Woman, Man, Non-binary, A different identity, Don't know and Prefer not to say, which you can edit.
• For each option, you choose the kinship words a person with that option takes. Feminine words are mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt and niece. Masculine words are father, brother, son, grandfather, uncle and nephew. Neutral words are parent, sibling, child, grandparent and parent's sibling. An option you mark Not known takes neutral words, except that a biological parent whose gamete is known (see Which parent gave the egg or the sperm) is called a biological mother if they gave the egg or a biological father if they gave the sperm.
• The options belong to this stage, because it decides the words each one takes. They can only be edited from this stage, and are read-only everywhere else in Architect. Only one stage can manage an attribute's options, so another Family Pedigree stage cannot use the same gender identity attribute: its own words would not follow an edit made here. Give each stage that asks about gender identity its own attribute, or switch the question off on the others.

When it is off, the question is not asked, and the everyday kinship words follow each person's sex assigned at birth instead: female takes feminine words, male takes masculine words, and anyone else takes neutral words.

Participant marker

The marker is true on the participant's own person and blank, not false, on everyone else. Use it in a stage filter to keep the participant out of later stages that ask about their relatives, or to tell them apart in exports and analysis. Because it is blank on everyone else, filter on "is not" true rather than on false.

Relationship to the participant

Later stages can only filter or skip on a person's own attributes, so a family member's relationship to the participant is not available to them unless it is saved on each person. Switch on Record each person's relationship to the participant and choose a categorical attribute to hold it. When you create a new attribute, Architect fills in the options with labels in your language, which you can translate; their values are fixed, and an attribute with other options cannot be chosen. The interface writes the attribute itself, so no form field or other answer can collect it, and it is never asked.

The interview works the relationship out from the family the participant has drawn each time they leave the stage, forwards or back. Everyone connected to the participant is given one; the participant is not. Anyone who held a relationship but is no longer connected to the participant, for example because the participant removed the person who connected them, has it cleared, so a filter never finds a stale relative. The values name neither gender nor side of the family:

A person's genetic parents are their biological parents and their egg or sperm donors, so two people conceived with the same donor are siblings. Whether siblings are full or half siblings depends only on their genetic parents: an adoptive parent never makes a full sibling a half sibling. The labels on the canvas follow the same rule, and an adoptiveSibling left unnamed is labeled "Adoptive sister", "Adoptive brother" or "Adoptive sibling".

Step and in-law values pass only through parents who raise a child (biological, adoptive, and step or social parents, but not donors or surrogates) and through partnerships that are current. A birth parent of someone adopted away from them does not raise them, unless the birth parent's partner adopted the child, as in a step-parent adoption. So the unnamed birth father of the participant's adopted partner is an otherRelative, labeled "Daniel’s biological father" on the canvas, rather than a parentInLaw. So a donor's partner, a partner's donor-conceived child and a parent's former partner are each an otherRelative, and so is a sibling's, a child's or a grandparent's former partner. A step-grandparent is labeled "Step-grandmother", "Step-grandfather" or "Step-grandparent" on the canvas. To record a former partner's child as a step-child, the participant adds a step or social parent relationship to them. Every step or social parent is a stepParent, whatever their label on the canvas.

Someone related to the participant in more than one way gets one value: the closest biological tie first (parent, child, sibling, then donor, donorConceivedChild and halfSibling), then adoptive ties, then partners, then biological relatives further out, then adoptive grandchildren, then surrogacy, step and in-law ties, and otherRelative last. So a parent's sister who donated the egg is a donor, a grandmother who also carried the participant is a grandparent, and a grandchild who is both a child's biological child and another child's adopted child is a grandchild.

For example, to show a later stage only the participant's first-degree biological relatives, filter on the relationship being parent, donor, sibling, child or donorConceivedChild.

The relationship is not encrypted, even when the study encrypts names, because only text attributes can be encrypted.

How each person's symbol is drawn

A person's symbol in the interview comes from the shape setting of the person type in the codebook, under Node appearance: a default shape and, optionally, shapes mapped from an attribute. The interface does not draw sex or gender in any other way, and with no mapping everyone has the default shape.

The Symbols choice at the end of the Person attributes section sets this mapping in one click, following standard pedigree nomenclature:

• Sex assigned at birth draws female as a circle, male as a square, and everyone else as a diamond.
• Gender identity, offered while the stage asks about gender identity, draws options that take feminine words as a circle, options that take masculine words as a square, and everyone else as a diamond.
• Set in the codebook leaves the symbols to the codebook, and says what the codebook draws. Choosing it over one of the other two removes the mapping, so everyone has the default shape.

With either of the first two, a person with no answer is drawn as a diamond. The selected option always reflects the codebook as it is. A mapping set by hand in the codebook, or one that follows another attribute, shows as Set in the codebook, and Architect asks before replacing it. If you change the gender identity options or their kinship words after drawing symbols from them, a note under the label says the symbols are out of date and offers Update symbols.

The choice changes the codebook straight away, not when you save the stage. Because the shape belongs to the person type, the change applies wherever people of that type are drawn in the interview, on other stages too. You can still edit the mapping in the codebook afterwards.

Relationships

Choose the Relationship edge type: the type of connection that every partnership and parent-child relationship is saved as. Changing it clears the attributes below from the stage, because they belong to the type; the attributes themselves stay in the codebook. Siblings are not recorded directly: two people are siblings when they share a parent.

Then choose the attributes the interface writes on each relationship.

The interface writes these attributes itself. A filter or skip logic can read them.

Wording

Choose the kinship words used for family members the participant has not named. People who are named are shown by name. The wording changes what participants read, and the words in the labels saved for people the participant leaves unnamed (see Name). It adds no other data to the export.

The question opens by itself a moment after the stage loads, and stays open until the participant chooses. Until then the family cannot be used: selecting a person opens the question rather than their details, and while the question is open no one can be selected, added to or connected. When the participant opens the control again later to change their choice, it closes as usual when they move away from it.

When the participant chooses, their choice is kept with the interview session. It is not exported.

Additional person fields

Optionally ask more about each family member. These fields come last in the side panel, after the interface's own questions about the person and how they are related. Participants answer them for every person they add, and for themselves, so keep them short.

Fields are set up like the fields of other forms: each pairs an attribute with a prompt and an optional hint. See Forms. A field cannot collect an attribute the interface already records itself, which means the person attributes above and the attributes of any nomination prompts. If the codebook marks a field's attribute as required, the participant must answer it, and with a completeness requirement switched on a person who has not answered it counts as missing a detail.

A field's question and hint can show piped text about the person the panel is about, such as their label. Its insert menu also lists Participant or someone else, which gives the text one version for the participant and one for everyone else in the family, so that the same field can ask "Are you still living?" in the participant's own panel and "Is this person still living?" in everyone else's. It is never missing and is never shown as words. The participant marker attribute stays in the menu too.

Completeness

Optionally check that participants have recorded a minimum part of their family, and every required detail about each person, before they continue. Switched off, participants can continue with whatever they have drawn.

Choose Relatives to record. Each choice includes the ones before it:

1. Both biological parents: every person has two biological parents, so an unknown parent is still added to the family. An unnamed stand-in counts as a recorded parent, though their details may still be needed.
2. Parents, siblings and children: the participant's first-degree relatives, and the other biological parent of each of the participant's biological children. An unnamed parent added for a child, by choosing Someone not shown yet, counts, and that parent's own family is not asked for.
3. Three generations: adds grandparents, and aunts and uncles on both sides.
4. All second-degree relatives: adds nieces, nephews and grandchildren.
5. Three generations, to first cousins: adds first cousins.

Only biological relatives count, so an adopted child does not satisfy "children". Biological parents are the people who gave the egg or the sperm, so donors count, but a surrogate does not. A participant can account for siblings and children by saying that a person has none or that they do not know. Those answers are kept in the Relatives not recorded attribute, a categorical attribute whose options the interface sets.

The required details about each person are their sex assigned at birth, their gender identity when the stage asks about it, and any additional person field whose attribute the codebook marks as required. They apply to everyone in the family, including people the interface added without a name. A name is never a required detail.

Choose When the family is incomplete:

• Required: participants cannot continue until the required relatives and details are recorded.
• Recommended: participants are shown what is missing but may continue.

A ring in the toolbar fills as the family nears what you require, and shows a tick once it is complete. Hovering over the ring, or giving it keyboard focus, shows a list of everything asked about the family: what is done, ticked and struck through, and what is still needed. Choosing an item that is still needed takes the participant to where it is resolved, such as the panel of the person whose parents are missing, and an item asking for siblings or children can also be answered there, by saying that the person has none or that the participant does not know. Missing details are listed person by person while any are missing, and then as one item, ticked once nothing else is needed either. Clicking the ring, or pressing Next while the family is incomplete, keeps the list open. Whether or not you set a completeness requirement, a warning appears on any person whose required details are missing, and a screen reader says that some of their details are missing.

The words of the checklist are settings of the stage too. They are in the Completeness checklist group of Customize built-in wording, which appears once you switch completeness on.

Nomination prompts

Optionally ask questions about the whole family once it is drawn, such as "Who in your family has had heart disease?". Each prompt has:

• the question the participant reads;
• a boolean attribute. The interface sets it to true on everyone the participant selects, and to false on anyone they select and then deselect. Everyone else is left blank. It cannot be the participant marker or another attribute the interface sets itself;
• optionally, a limit on Who can be selected: anyone, anyone except people assigned male at birth, or anyone except people assigned female at birth. Use a limit for a condition that only people of one sex can have. People recorded as the other sex are shown as unavailable and cannot be selected, but everyone else can, including people whose sex assigned at birth is intersex, don't know, prefer not to say, or not yet answered.

Participants answer the prompts in the order you list them, after they have drawn their family.

The attribute each prompt records is what a Narrative Pedigree stage reads to draw who has a condition and to infer how it is inherited. Pair the two stages when you want to show how a condition runs through the family.

Customize built-in wording

The Customize built-in wording section holds the words participants read on this stage, apart from the prompt and the name question. It has two parts, each opened and closed by clicking its heading. Specific to this stage has up to four groups of settings, which you open one at a time, in the order participants meet them:

• Drawing the family holds the note about people the interface adds for them to fill in later, the kinship words and labels for people who have no name, and the participant's own name (Participant’s own name), "You" unless you change it. The participant's own name can show an attribute of the participant, such as a name given on an earlier Ego Form, inserted with the piped text button like any piped text.
• Connecting people holds the questions and confirmations that appear when the participant connects, disconnects or removes people, and the messages that say why a change isn't available.
• Adding a family member holds the side panel: its title, the question about each kind of relationship, the answers offered, and the messages that say why an answer isn't available.
• Completeness checklist holds the words of the checklist: the item asking for a person's missing parents (Missing parents item), the items asking for their brothers and sisters and for their children, the buttons that answer that they have none, the side panel's questions about them, the item for missing details, and the note shown under the checklist when completeness is only recommended (Note about continuing anyway).

Every setting starts as Network Canvas words it, in every language it has wording for, and you can change and translate it like any other text. Your protocol keeps only the wording you change (see Words Network Canvas supplies). There are up to 82 of them.

Many of these texts read differently when they are about the participant ("Add your biological parents") and when they are about someone else ("Add biological parents for Tom"), so each has a version for each. The checklist item asking for parents also has a version for each number of missing parents that your language words differently, such as one parent and two. Each text is edited as piped text is. The syringe button, Inject piped text from this stage, or typing {, inserts what the text can show, such as the person's name or the number of parents missing, and what it can change with, such as Participant or someone else. A text that changes with something is shown as one folded piece, and opening it shows one version for each case. A text that shows a number has wording that fits the number where your language needs it. When every version reads the same, Architect saves the text once.

The buttons and answers the stage shares with other stages, such as Save, Cancel, Delete and "Don't know", are the protocol's interview text, not settings of this stage. So are the words every Family Pedigree stage shows alike: the names, descriptions and hints of its three tools, the question and control for choosing the words used for the family, the descriptions of the zoom buttons, the Show the whole family button and the checklist item for all details. They are under Shared by every stage of this kind, where a change applies to every stage that shows the same words, including the zoom buttons of a Narrative Pedigree, and is saved as soon as you leave the field. A setting is in the section only while the part of the stage it belongs to is switched on:

• the question that asks which words to use, its explanation, and the name and description of the toolbar button that changes the choice, only while a Family Pedigree stage's wording is Let the participant choose. These are shared, so they are offered while any Family Pedigree stage lets the participant choose;
• the label of the gender identity question, only while the stage asks about gender identity;
• the Completeness checklist group, only while the stage has a completeness requirement, and the shared checklist item for all details, while any Family Pedigree stage has one.

Architect adds these settings when you switch the part on, and removes them when you switch it off.

Best Practices

Try to Avoid

References

• Bennett RL, French KS, Resta RG, Austin J. Practice resource-focused revision: Standardized pedigree nomenclature update centered on sex and gender inclusivity: A practice resource of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Journal of Genetic Counseling. 2022;31(6):1238–1248.