Neutrino mass matrices, texture zeros, and family symmetries

We demonstrate that Abelian family symmetries allow one to enforce texture zeros in arbitrary entries of the fermion mass matrices. Placing zeros in any number of elements of all occurring mass matrices can be done with two alternative methods; one of them utilizes the group Z_n with n sufficiently high. Concentrating on the lepton sector and on neutrino masses, we discuss the methods in the case of seesaw models and scalar triplet models. As an illustration, we present an example for each type of model.