The Dutton Family Tree Explained: Complete Guide to Yellowstone’s Most Powerful Family
Though the fifth season of Yellowstone aired its (probably) final episode last year, and the Yellowstone prequel 1923 just wrapped up its final season, we haven’t closed the book on Dutton family history quite yet. With the completion of 1923 also came hints of what may lay ahead for the Duttons in the previously announced series 1944, so it’s only natural that Montana’s most famous ranching family is still on our minds.
The complicated Dutton relationships on the flagship series were tricky enough to keep track of, but combined with the characters from the prequels, 1883, 1923, and now 1944, there are a lot of Duttons to keep tabs on. With that in mind, T&C has put together a guide to make understanding all of those familial connections easier. Scroll on for everything we know (so far) about the lineage of Yellowstone’s first family. Spoilers ahead!
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The Duttons
Design by Michael Stillwell
1883
James Dutton
The patriarch of 1883, James (Tim McGraw) was a farmer from Tennessee. Haunted by his experiences in the Civil War, where he served in the Confederate army during the Battle of Antietam and was later held as a prisoner of war, James chose to strike out for a new life out west with his family in 1883. Along with his wife, Margaret, their children, Elsa and John, James’s sister Claire, and Claire’s daughter Mary Abel, James set out with a wagon train from Fort Worth, Texas, but the journey was dogged by tragedy. Following the death of Elsa on the trail, John and his remaining family decided to settle in Montana, on what would one day become the famous Yellowstone Dutton Ranch.
Margaret Dutton
The confident and uncompromising wife of James, Margaret (Faith Hill) was the Dutton family matriarch in 1883. A strong leader and fiercely protective of her family, she set out with James and their family on the trail westward, only to settle on a homestead in Montana after the death of their daughter Elsa.
Elsa Dutton
Spirited Elsa (Isabel May) was the eldest child of James and Margaret Dutton and served as the narrator of 1883. Passionate and willful, Elsa was a skilled horseback rider and cowgirl, much to her mother’s chagrin. At the age of seventeen, she set out on a wagon train with her family in search of a new start in the west. Along the trail, she fell in love with a cowboy, Ennis, and the two planned to marry before Ennis was shot by a group of bandits. Later, Elsa became entangled with Sam, a Comanche warrior who saved her life on the trail. Though she and Sam acknowledged that she was his wife, he felt he could not leave his lands and people, and Elsa agreed to return to him after her family had completed their journey and found a homestead. However, not long after, Elsa was shot by an arrow during a retaliatory attack on the wagon train and ultimately died of her wounds. In her honor, James settled their remaining family on the spot in Montana where Elsa took her last breath.
Sam
A Comanche warrior who the Duttons met along the wagon trail in 1883, Sam (Martin Sensmeier) professed to have taken his name from the man who killed his wife. He later began a romance with Elsa Dutton, and the two married without official ceremony. Feeling he belonged to the land and could not leave it, Sam remained behind as Elsa traveled on with her family, with the promise that she would return to him.
Claire née Dutton
James Dutton’s stern sister (Dawn Olivieri) was less than enthused about joining James and his family on their excursion out west, but joined them under protest, along with her teenage daughter Mary Abel, after she was left widowed and without options by the death of her husband Henry. Claire didn’t make it far along the trail, though. After a gang of ne’er-do-wells retaliated to Claire’s scorn by shooting several members of the wagon train, including Mary Abel, Claire died by suicide beside her daughter’s grave.
Henry
The husband of Claire—sister of James Dutton. He died sometime shortly before the events of 1883, leading his wife and daughter, Mary Abel, to travel with the Duttons.
Mary Abel
The only one of Claire and Henry’s seven children to survive until 1883, Mary Abel (Emma Malouff) was briefly on the trail to Oregon with her uncle James Dutton and his family. Not far outside of Fort Worth, Texas, their group was harassed by a local gang and in the midst of the altercation, Mary Abel was shot dead.
1923
John Dutton Sr.
The son of James and Margaret Dutton, John (James Badge Dale) was only a child when his family founded their homestead in Montana—the land that would ultimately become the Yellowstone Dutton ranch. As an adult, he worked with his uncle, Jacob Dutton, on the family land and had a family of his own; his wife Emma and son Jack. John was ultimately killed in an ambush by the family’s enemies.
Emma Dutton
The wife of John Dutton Sr. and the mother of Jack Dutton. After the death of her beloved husband, John, Emma (Marley Shelton) died by suicide.
Jack Dutton
Carrying on his family’s heritage, Jack (Darren Mann) worked with his father, John Dutton Sr. and great-uncle, Jacob Dutton on the family’s Montana ranch. (Note: As Jack is sometimes a nickname for John, it’s possible that Jack is John Dutton Jr. but that has not been confirmed onscreen.) He went on to marry Elizabeth, the well-mannered daughter of another local rancher. During 1923‘s second season, Jack was shockingly killed, leaving the newly-pregnant Elizabeth a widow.
Elizabeth Dutton
The wife of Jack, Elizabeth was East Coast educated before returning to Montana to marry her sweetheart. Elizabeth miscarried once, then later, after being bitten by a rabid wolf, discovered that she was pregnant once again. However, after her husband was killed by the Dutton family’s enemies, Elizabeth ultimately decided to return to Boston where her family was living. Her fate, and the fate of her second pregnancy, has not been revealed yet.
Spencer Dutton
The second son of James and Margaret Dutton, Spencer was born some time after the family settled in Montana. Spencer also served in WWI, fighting in the battle at Argonne, and, like his father, remained haunted by his experiences on the battlefield. Rather than returning to the family’s ranch after the war, he became a big game hunter in Africa. It was there he met his wife, Alexandra, before deciding to return to America to help his family on the ranch.
After a harrowing journey back to Montana, Spencer helped save the 1923 Duttons and was briefly reunited with his wife Alex. However Alex died shortly thereafter, prematurely delivering the couple’s only son, John Dutton II. Following Alex’s death, Spencer never remarried, though he did have one illegitimate son with a widow—so far neither her name nor the name of their son has been revealed onscreen. Spencer died 45 years after returning to Montana in 1969, passing away on the grave of his beloved wife.
Alexandra Dutton
Free spirited Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer) was in Africa to celebrate her impending marriage to the son of the Earl of Sussex before she fell into the arms of Spencer Dutton. Though their courtship was far from typical for a British aristocrat (rogue leopards, sinking tugboats, and hungry sharks tend to do that) the couple nonetheless married while on the way to America to rejoin Spencer’s family in Montana. Though they were forcibly separated after Spencer killed her former fiancee in a duel, the now-pregnant Alexandra ultimately left her family behind, traveling to America in secret to try and find Spencer and his family in Montana.
Alex endured a difficult journey across the America, finally reaching Montana only to have the car she was traveling in run out of gas in the midst of a frozen wasteland. Though she was finally rescued, Alex suffered severe frostbite. Rather than allowin