FAMILY TREES Synonyms: 36 Similar and Opposite Words

family trees

noun

plural of family tree

as in lineages

the line of ancestors from whom a person is descended his family tree includes writers, musical composers, and other notables in the arts

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of family trees Kurin is also senior author of a paper describing the methods that connected the former US president to Hemings’ descendants, which involved delving deep into the genetics of the Jefferson and Hemings family trees. — Mindy Weisberger, CNN Money, 30 Sep. 2026 Many of them supplement the text with photographs, epigraphs, glossaries, family trees, sketches, timelines, variant tables of contents, alternating fonts and notes to the reader. — Christopher Coffman, The Conversation, 24 Aug. 2026 The family trees here have a lot of branches and some of them are a bit rotten. — Randy Myers, Mercury News, 16 July 2026 The case was built by forensic genetic genealogy, which is the same science that traced DNA family trees to find the Golden State Killer in California and help solve the Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin, Texas. — Meredith Colias-Pete, Chicago Tribune, 16 July 2026 The samples helped people discover entirely new family trees and could reveal consequential health information, such as a genetic predisposition to cancer. — Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2026 The Oscar-winning actress and former Vogue editor-in-chief are related, according to an analysis of family trees and public records done by DNA testing company Ancestry. — Melina Khan, USA Today, 2 Apr. 2026 Unfortunately, those answers often appear directly in public family trees. — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 18 Mar. 2026 As family trees expand, more stakeholders enter the conversation, and priorities can diverge. — Belinda G. Schwartz, Fortune, 7 Mar. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for family trees

Noun

Some ancestral lineages diverged roughly 21,000 years ago, according to the review.

— Andrea Margolis, FOXNews.com, 19 Oct. 2026
While some of these families traced their lineages back to the colonial aristocrats of Mexico or New England, the Mesmers, like Griffith, were recent European immigrants, having come to the United States from Alsace, France.

— Andrew Coletti, Popular Science, 14 Oct. 2026

Definition of lineages

Noun

But Shanes questioned whether grouping Jews under a single ethnic category would produce sufficiently specific data for those purposes, or instead obscure differences among Jewish populations with distinct ancestries.

— Naomi Taxay, Sacbee.com, 28 Aug. 2026
This technique overcomes limitations of older methods like genotyping arrays, which were often biased towards European ancestries and less accurate.

— William A. Haseltine, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026

Definition of ancestries

Noun

Sometimes, though, these genealogies of behavior can seem beside the point, serving only to dull one’s analysis of the situation.

— Jay Caspian Kang, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2026
The scientists’ method reconstructs genealogies, or maps showing where different pieces of DNA came from and how they were passed down, revealing branches of our evolutionary past.

— Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 26 Aug. 2026

Definition of genealogies

Noun

Both have become tools for wealthy families seeking easier travel or a fallback if political and economic conditions worsen at home.

— Mia Osmonbekov, Fortune, 18 Oct. 2026
At least six families said health workers visited only after a child had died from measles in their community.

— Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 18 Oct. 2026

Definition of families

Noun

For anyone who spends a lot of time online, the series’s AI origins are hard to miss.

— Britta Miller, The Washington Examiner, 14 Oct. 2026
This team considered the origins of this star using a model of the Milky Way that has been rapidly enriched with elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, which astronomers call metals, via the death of the first generation of stars.

— Robert Lea, Space.com, 14 Oct. 2026

Definition of origins

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family tree

family trees

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“Family trees.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/family%20trees. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of family trees

noun

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