Pedigree chart - Definition and Overview

Example pedigree chart

A pedigree chart is a chart which tells you all of the known phenotypes and genotypes for an organism and its ancestors, most commonly humans, show dogs, and race horses.

In an animal pedigree chart, a female is represented with a circle and a male with a square, and is organized much like a family tree. All those individuals' shapes with the recessive characteristic are coloured in, all those with the dominant characteristic are left unfilled. Organisms known to be heterozygous are half coloured in, half not.

Pedigree charts are also a common tool in human genealogy studies. For the aristocracy, to whom these things are of great importance, their pedigrees are recorded and charted by Burke's Peerage and in Europe by the Almanach de Gotha