The use of relational database commands in retrieval of pedigree information

Genetic research frequently requires retrieval of information about families afflicted with some genetic disease. These queries may involve simple retrieval of information on individuals with particular attributes or finding data from sibships or families who meet some set of criteria. Although the former case may be handled by almost any file management system, the latter case cannot be easily managed since family relationships are necessary to the query. These family relationships are normally stored by means of a pointer system that links the record of each individual with those of his parents. Given such a pointer system, the standard commands of a relational database system can be used to perform such retrievals, thus diminishing the need for special programs to perform such queries.