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 Some branches of those family trees are relatively recent, while others extend much further into the past. — Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 26 Aug. 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

One of the lineages appears to have interbred directly with Homo sapiens in Africa more than 50,000 years ago, while the other was an even older group that passed some of its DNA to humans indirectly through Denisovans.

— Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 26 Aug. 2026
In addition, the way in initial cases occurred in clusters within the market and the distribution of the earliest viral lineages, is consistent with the likelihood that several separate animal-to-human spillover events took place in late 2019.

— Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Aug. 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

The cast has become a kind of living monument to New York theater, with Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Donna Murphy, Kelli O’Hara, Audra McDonald, and many others bringing Broadway pedigrees to the series.

— Chris Murphy, Vanity Fair, 25 Aug. 2026
That’s why the mission was to create waves on the defensive line, to add game-changers built for big moments, such as Dexter Lawrence, and to focus on players with winning, championship pedigrees.

— Paul Dehner Jr, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2026

Definition of pedigrees

Noun

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
The seal texts often introduced the owners with their names, genealogies, gender, professions and hometowns.

— Serdar Yalçin, The Conversation, 3 Nov. 2025

Definition of genealogies

Noun

Demographic experts are cautiously optimistic about the new scheme, which appears to offer more sustained and holistic support for families.

— Angelica Ang, Fortune, 30 Aug. 2026
The gesture continues a pattern for Swift, who has a long history of quietly funding GoFundMe campaigns for fans and strangers facing medical emergencies, including past donations to families affected by natural disasters and accidents.

— Jessica Lynch, Billboard, 29 Aug. 2026

Definition of families

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family tree

family trees

family way

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“Family trees.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/family%20trees. Accessed 3 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of family trees

noun

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