Dutton Family Tree: 1883, 1923 and Yellowstone, Generation by Generation

The Dutton family tree follows a fictional Montana ranching family through three television series in the Yellowstone franchise, created by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson. 1883 introduces James and Margaret Dutton and their children. 1923 centers on James's brother Jacob, his wife Cara and the nephews they raised. Yellowstone follows John Dutton III and his four children. James is John Dutton III's great-grandfather.

The shows were not released in story order. Yellowstone ran from 2018 to 2024, 1883 from 2021 to 2022 and 1923 from 2022 to 2025. This guide follows the family's own timeline instead.

Spoiler note: everything below names marriages, children and, where the tree depends on it, deaths, through the finales of all three series.

The Dutton family tree at a glance

Each indent is one generation. Marriages are marked with "m."

• James Dutton m. Margaret (1883)
  • Elsa Dutton, no children
  • John Dutton Sr. m. Emma
    • Jack Dutton m. Elizabeth Strafford
  • Spencer Dutton m. Alexandra
    • John, born in the 1923 finale and widely taken to be John Dutton II (not stated outright; see below)
      • John Dutton III, son of John Dutton II, m. Evelyn
        • Lee Dutton
        • Jamie Dutton (adopted), who has a son with Christina
        • Beth Dutton m. Rip Wheeler; they raise Carter
        • Kayce Dutton m. Monica Long
          • Tate Dutton
• Jacob Dutton (James's brother) m. Cara: no children of their own
• Claire Dutton (James's widowed sister)
  • Mary Abel

Generation one: the Duttons of 1883

James Dillard Dutton and his wife Margaret leave Tennessee, join a wagon train at Fort Worth, Texas, and end up in Montana, on the land that later becomes the Yellowstone ranch. Two of their children make the journey: Elsa, 17, who narrates the series, and John, who is five when it begins. James's widowed sister Claire and her daughter Mary Abel set out with them, and both die along the way.

Elsa dies of an arrow wound at the end of 1883, in the valley where the family then settles. Sam, a Comanche warrior, takes her as his wife during the journey, and she has no children. She also narrates 1923.

The third child, Spencer, is not in 1883. He first appears as a boy, beside a teenage John, in flashbacks set in 1893 in the fourth season of Yellowstone.

Generation two: the Duttons of 1923

Forty years on, the ranch is run by Jacob Dutton, James's older brother, and his wife Cara. They have no children and raised James and Margaret's sons, John Sr. and Spencer, as their own.

• John Dutton Sr. is married to Emma. Their only child is Jack, who marries Elizabeth Strafford, a neighboring rancher's daughter.
• Spencer, a World War I veteran working as a hunter in Africa, meets Alexandra, a British woman, and marries her at sea on the way home.

John Sr. is killed in an ambush in the first season, and Emma dies soon after. Jack is killed in the second season, and Elizabeth, who is pregnant, leaves Montana; her child is never shown. Alexandra gives birth to a son, named John, and dies hours later. Jacob and Cara help raise the boy while Spencer runs the ranch, and a flash-forward shows Spencer's death in 1969.

The debated link: who is John Dutton III's grandfather?

Here is what is and is not on the record as of November 10, 2026.

• Stated: James and Margaret are John Dutton III's great-grandparents. His father is John Dutton II, who appears as an old man in one Yellowstone episode, the season two finale.
• Shown in the 1923 finale (April 6, 2025): Jack dies before any child of his is born, and Spencer and Alexandra's son is named John.
• What follows from the arithmetic: if James is the great-grandfather, there is room for exactly one generation between him and John Dutton II. Spencer fits. A line through John Sr. and Jack would add a generation.
• Not confirmed in so many words: the recaps we read do not report the baby being called John Dutton II on screen. Asked after the finale, Spencer's actor, Brandon Sklenar, said he could neither confirm nor deny that this John is the one viewers assume, according to Den of Geek.

Wikipedia's franchise page now describes Spencer as John Dutton III's grandfather, and most coverage agrees. We found no statement from the creators that settles it formally, so the honest label is "strongly implied." On a chart, a dotted line is the right way to draw it.

Generation four and after: the Duttons of Yellowstone

John Dutton III owns the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. His wife, Evelyn, died in a riding accident in 1997, and they had four children.

• Lee, the eldest son.
• Jamie, adopted as an infant. His biological father is Garrett Randall. Jamie has a son, named after him, with his former assistant Christina.
• Beth, the only daughter, who marries Rip Wheeler. Rip is the ranch foreman, taken in by the Duttons as a young runaway; he is a Dutton by marriage only. Beth and Rip take in Carter, a teenage orphan, as their son.
• Kayce, the youngest son, who marries Monica Long. Their son, Tate, is described as John's only biological grandchild.

Two sequels carry these branches forward. Marshals (CBS, premiered March 1, 2026) follows Kayce, now a widower raising Tate after Monica's death; its second season began on October 4, 2026. Dutton Ranch (Paramount+, premiered May 15, 2026) follows Beth, Rip and Carter in Texas and was renewed for a second season in June 2026. As of November 2026, a further prequel, 1944, is listed as in development, with no premiere date on the pages we checked. The Madison, another Sheridan series set in Montana, is a stand-alone story and not part of this tree.

Who's who: the Duttons in a table

Character	Series	Parents	Spouse	Children
James Dutton	1883	Not given	Margaret	Elsa, John Sr., Spencer
Margaret Dutton	1883	Not given	James	Elsa, John Sr., Spencer
Elsa Dutton	1883; narrator of 1923	James and Margaret	Sam	None
Jacob Dutton	1923	Not given; James's brother	Cara	None; raises John Sr. and Spencer
John Dutton Sr.	1883, 1923	James and Margaret	Emma	Jack
Spencer Dutton	1923	James and Margaret	Alexandra	John
Jack Dutton	1923	John Sr. and Emma	Elizabeth Strafford	None shown
John Dutton II	Yellowstone	Implied: Spencer and Alexandra	Not given	John III
John Dutton III	Yellowstone	John Dutton II; mother not given	Evelyn	Lee, Jamie (adopted), Beth, Kayce
Lee Dutton	Yellowstone	John III and Evelyn	None shown	None shown
Jamie Dutton	Yellowstone	Adopted by John III and Evelyn	None shown	A son with Christina
Beth Dutton	Yellowstone, Dutton Ranch	John III and Evelyn	Rip Wheeler	Carter (taken in)
Kayce Dutton	Yellowstone, Marshals	John III and Evelyn	Monica Long	Tate
Tate Dutton	Yellowstone, Marshals	Kayce and Monica	None	None

Why tell one family's story across generations?

Sheridan first wrote Yellowstone as a film and pitched it as a Montana counterpart to The Godfather, another saga about a family and what it holds. Spreading the story over some 140 years lets each generation's choices become the next generation's inheritance, with the land as the one constant.

The prequels work like feature-length flashbacks. Yellowstone introduced 1883 in exactly that way, with scenes of James and Margaret in 1893 placed inside its fourth season, and Elsa's narration returns in the final episode of Yellowstone to tie the ends together. Our guides to the flashback and to story structure explain how writers manage that kind of time jump.

If the Duttons make you want to chart your own relatives, start with our guide on how to make a family tree.