Relationships between people
This guide describes the Pillars phone app. The website does the same calculations, but some screens and features work differently or aren't here yet.
A family is a web, not a list. Your mother is also your sister's mother. Your partner's mother is your mother-in-law. Pillars lets you draw that web, one thread at a time.
Any two people
A relationship joins two people in the app. Any two, not just you and someone else: your mother and your sister, your partner and a friend, anyone with anyone.
And every link works both ways. Say Rosa is Julian's mother. Then Julian is Rosa's son, without you doing anything else. You only enter it once.
Where to find it
On each person's page, and on the Chart tab, there's a block called Relationships. It lists everyone linked to that person, seen from their side: "her mother", "his colleague", "your partner".
To add one:
- Tap Add a relationship.
- With whom? Pick the other person.
- Then the app asks, for example, "Rosa is Julian's ___". Choose mother, father, son or daughter, brother or sister, partner, friend, colleague, or other relationship.
Before you save, you'll see both sides in plain words: "Rosa is Julian's mother." And right below: "Julian will be Rosa's son."
To change a link, tap its row (the one with the little pencil). To undo it, open the row and choose Remove relationship.
Son, daughter or child
Some words depend on the traditional formula chosen in that person's birth details. With Female you'll read "daughter" or "sister", and with Male "son" or "brother". It's only the word. The link is the same.
For the same reason, the app won't offer "mother" for someone marked Male, or "father" for someone marked Female.
In-laws, worked out for you
There's one thing the app figures out by itself: in-laws through a partner. Say Clara is Julian's partner, and Rosa is Julian's mother. Then Rosa shows up as Clara's mother-in-law, and Clara as Rosa's daughter-in-law. The row adds "through Julian".
You can't edit those rows, because they come from the other two links. Change one of those, and the in-law follows on its own.
Nothing else is guessed. Your sister's son doesn't turn into your nephew, and grandparents don't appear by themselves. If a tie matters to you and isn't on the list, choose other relationship.
No relationship is fine too
Not everyone needs a link. When you add someone, you can pick No relation. In the People filters, they show up under No relationship, together with anyone linked only as "other relationship".
Why it's worth doing
Relationships are more than labels. The pair and group readings take them into account: a parent and a child aren't read the same way as two colleagues. People also lists your closest relations near the top, so the people who matter most are always at hand.