In modern times, it is quite easy to look at families in the "nuclear" sense. Who lives in the house? Who paid for whom's food while they were growing up? Those are the bounding boxes of our family relationships. *Notice that when we use these the world can redefine family however they want. *  But that isn't a family. Or better it isn't the whole family. In the book of Genesis I see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Patriarchs so firmly planted in faith, despite their faults, that they define a nation permanently.