family history

noun

"family-history" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“family history” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An extension to genealogy in which the life and times of the people concerned are investigated.

Key facts for family history
PropertyValue
Headwordfamily history
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “family history” sits in English frequency

family history falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

family history is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

family history doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is family history, spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y- -H-I-S-T-O-R-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    An extension to genealogy in which the life and times of the people concerned are investigated.
  2. 2
    Information concerning the disorders suffered by the direct relatives of a patient; especially useful if the disorders are genetic.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "family history"?
"family history" is spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y- -H-I-S-T-O-R-Y.
What does "family history" mean?
As a noun, "family history" means: An extension to genealogy in which the life and times of the people concerned are investigated.
What language does "family history" come from?
"family history" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “family history”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is F-A-M-I-L-Y- -H-I-S-T-O-R-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list