Cryptic crossword clue
Heartless scarlet woman starts to trace ancestry in family trees 8

The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word STEMMATA

I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
S
T
E
M
M
A
T
A

Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "family trees" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case family trees = stemmata.
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.
This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.

What does STEMMATA mean?

STEMMATA noun
  1. A family tree or recorded genealogy
  2. In the study of stemmatics, a diagram showing the relationship of a text to its manuscripts
  3. One of the types of simple eyes in arthropods

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