Your Medical Roots

Medical Family Tree

WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson Mathis, MD

Do you know what your grandfather on your father's side died of? How old was he when he died? What about on your mother's side?

"People spend a lot of time on genealogy and getting family history information -- where their great-grandfather was buried, what church their grandmother got married in -- but they don't know what they died from," observes Robin Bennett, president-elect of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, a board member of the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, and a genetic counselor at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle.

Finding out what your grandparents died from, although it may not be as charming as finding the old country church where they were married, could help save your life. More and more people, as they track their genealogy, are also compiling a medical family tree, a map that looks like the spreading branches of a regular family tree but also includes information about each relative's age at death, cause of death, and when they developed the disease that killed them.

"I'm living proof that medical family trees can save your life. If you don't think that illnesses and diseases are related, you might be wrong," says Carol Krause. She should know. A dozen years ago, her 38-year-old sister was diagnosed with ovarian and endometrial cancer -- and the four Krause sisters began doing detective work, tracing a family tree of cancer deaths that included their mother, dead of ovarian cancer at 56, and their father's sister, dead of ovarian cancer in her 30s. Of 16first- and second-degree relatives, only three were cancer-free.

For Carol, a colonoscopy revealed a tumor in precisely the same location as one that had killed her grandfather. Half her colon was removed. Three years later, after a regular mammogram came back with a red flag, she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and, in view of the family history, had a double mastectomy. Then in their 40s, the sisters also elected to have their ovaries and uterus removed.

"I'm alive today because I took action early," says Krause, who wrote How Healthy Is Your Family Tree? A Complete Guide to Tracing Your Family's Medical and Behavioral Tree. "People think they don't have to start worrying about these things until their 50s. If I'd waited until then, it would have been too late."

Cancer is not the only disease that can have a genetic link. Heart disease, alcoholism, and high blood pressure are just a few of the diseases that run in families, and experts believe that as many as half of all health conditions have some genetic basis.

So how do you find out if any diseases lurk in your family tree, and what their implications are for you?

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