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(source: angelabchrysler.com)

I wanted to create one of these for a story, but I don't know what they are called. I don't think these types of ... whatever... are 'trees,' due to their multiple starting points.

I don't know the proper stack exchange to ask this on, or the tags that go with it, because I don't know what this even is.

Edit

To explain why this is important to me:
I intend on creating a similar graph to help organize. In my concept, there is a humanoid race with cities hidden in caves and underwater. Each city is ruled over by one of the original immortal alien beings that came to earth, which are called High Keepers. They each have an immortal human agent, called an Old One, and it is common for them to produce hybrid children together. For example:

City - Liggishi (located in a hidden African grotto)
High Keeper - Euuttav (considered female)
Corresponding Old One - Askrlif (male)
Hybrid child - Dynglao (female)

I wanted to form a similar chart for the purpose of listing the cities, High Keepers, Old Ones, and hybrids all at once - and ensure that I didn't confuse myself by simply listing them like I did above here.

JBH
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Anonymía
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    It violates some of the constraints of a tree. Most generally, a collection of nodes and connections is called a graph. – JDługosz Mar 04 '16 at 20:03
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    Is it not like a family tree? – Vincent Mar 04 '16 at 20:05
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    It's just called a Family Tree or Ancestral Chart – guildsbounty Mar 04 '16 at 20:05
  • It appears to be a directed acyclic graph describing family relations. – ckersch Mar 04 '16 at 20:19
  • @guildsbounty A Family Tree is usually restricted to all ancestors or all descendants of a certain subject, or has both, and is open to extension. This example rather is a closed chart, graph or map of relations, relationships, families, a clan of even a population, a species. The OP should better explain what it is and why it is a helpful tool in world building, then nobody should consider this off-topic (and therefore vote to close). – Crissov Mar 04 '16 at 20:34
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    In its most general sense, this is a flow chart. Flowcharts can show family trees and pedigrees, or they can show dependencies, or they can be more programmatic and show choices, options, and consequences. They can be as simple or as complex as you can imagine. A competent, free, and online flowchart maker is SmartChart. If you're only looking for pedigrees, then Progeny might be more your speed. There are many free choices online. Cheers and good worldbuilding! – JBH Feb 02 '23 at 01:58
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    VTR and a note to the close voters: Helping people find worldbuilding tools and resources should be something we embrace with enthusiasm - not chase away. We have a List of Worldbuilding Resources to keep track of the resources people can use to improve their craft. For the love of Glarnak, we should be the worldwide source for these kinds of questions. The only factual problem this Q had was the use of the [tag:hard-science] tag rather than [tag:worldbuilding-resources]. – JBH Feb 02 '23 at 02:04
  • I've also heard them called geneologies, although that really refers to the underlying structure, which can be displayed in a few forms, the family tree being the most common. – Robert Rapplean Feb 02 '23 at 04:51
  • It's not a tree in the mathematical sense, but calling it a “family tree” would not be misunderstood. – Anton Sherwood Feb 02 '23 at 07:44

1 Answers1

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I am not an expert on Norse mythology. But

  • when this diagram represents who is the father/mother of whom, then it's a family tree.
  • When it represents who is the boss of whom or who belongs to which sub-faction, it is an organizational chart or hierarchy diagram.
  • When it represents who is a friend or enemy of whom, then it's a relationship chart (unlikely in this case, because these are more web-like than tree-like and usually have annotations describing the nature of the relations).
Philipp
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