I will review some classic results about transverse knots in contact manifolds and then introduce the definition of the transverse unknotting number. For smooth knots, an “ancestor-descendant” relation has been defined by Cantarella-Henrich-Magness-O’Keefe-Perez-Rawdon-Zimmer; I will describe a transverse analog of this relation and then define and calculate some “transverse family trees.” This is joint work with Blossom Jeong.