The Dutton clan continues to expand in 1923,
but their complicated lineage may send viewers scrambling to remember
who's who. We're here to explain the entire Dutton family tree and all its connections.
Margaret and James Dutton are the first members of the Dutton family we meet,
chronologically speaking, as they are the focus of the prequel series 1883.
While the two aren't main characters in the Yellowstone spin-off 1923,
their absence casts a long shadow. What they left behind forms the basis for what unfolds.
Margaret and James kickstarted the Dutton family as they set out from
their home in Tennessee for a new life in Oregon.
"I love you." "Why'd you say that?"
"I want you to know it."
"Now I'm nervous."
After joining an ill-fated wagon train across the frontier, death and disaster force them to
stake their claim in Paradise Valley, Montana. The premiere episode of 1923, however, confirms that
James died 10 years after arriving in Montana, as seen briefly in a Yellowstone flashback.
Following his passing, Margaret made a desperate plea to her husband's brother
Jacob to come lead the family on the Dutton Ranch. In the premiere of 1923,
it's revealed that when he arrived a year later, he discovered Margaret frozen to death in a
snowdrift. 1883 doesn't avoid the fact that not every death in the Wild West was grand or noble.
The central character of 1883, Elsa was the first Dutton to die on the frontier. She was
killed by an infection brought on by a Lakota arrow received in a battle during their trip
to Oregon. It was Elsa's death that forced the Dutton clan to stop and make their home
in Montana. But her presence is felt from beyond the grave as the narrator of 1923.
In the series premiere, Elsa delivers a warning about what's to come,
revealing that only one of her parent's children will live to see his children grow.
"Only one would carry the fate of this family through the Depression
and every other hell the twentieth century hurled at them."
She claims that the family empire will crumble under her uncle Jacob's watch.
Though she lost her life before the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch was even founded,
Elsa remains a forceful presence. Her gravestone can still be seen in current episodes of
Yellowstone, and it would seem that she still has a part to play in the events of 1923 as well.
Jacob Dutton owns the Yellowstone-Dutton ranch,
which has become a genuine empire. Jacob is the brother of 1883 star James Dutton. He arrived in
the region after James' death in 1893. This also makes him the brother of Claire Dutton,
who took her own life after the death of her daughter at the beginning of 1883. In 1923,
Jacob is the adoptive father to James' surviving children, John and Spencer.
He serves as Montana's livestock commissioner, the same role that will one day be held by his
descendants John Dutton III and Kayce Dutton many decades later on Yellowstone. This suggests
that the family has controlled the government position since Montana's founding. But Jacob has
made enemies among rival landowners who resent the large area of Montana that his family calls home.
"Your enemies have got to be so terrified that their fear is greater than their greed."
This becomes particularly problematic when the region is ravaged by both drought and locusts.
With 1923 setting the stage for a range war, Jacob will have to
be just as fierce as James before him if he's to protect the family legacy.
Cara Dutton, Jacob's wife and the family matriarch,
arrived on the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch with her husband in 1894. On her landing in Montana,
she took in James and Margaret's children, John and Spencer, and raised them as her own.
The close bond between Cara and her nephews is evident from the very beginning, as her emotional
letter to Spencer makes clear. She's just as close to her grandson Jack, son of John I,
showcased in the series premiere as she helps him smooth over an incident with his fiancée
Elizabeth. She makes it clear to Elizabeth that being a rancher's wife is a tough job.
"And you will be free in a way that most people can barely conceive."
Cara is a kind and gentle family leader, but she's as fierce and deadly as any Dutton when
her family is threatened. Cara can tangle with the best of them and is not to be underestimated.
Rather than revolving around Jacob Dutton, many Yellowstone fans may have assumed that 1923 would
focus on the now-middle-aged Dutton son John, a forebear of Kevin Costner's John Dutton III. John,
the son of James and Margaret Dutton, was just a child when we met him in 1883. By
the opening of 1923, he's in his mid-40s and married to Emma Dutton with a grown son of
his own named Jack. John is his uncle's right-hand man in his job as livestock
commissioner and appears to play a big role in running the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch.
However, we know from Elsa's voiceover that only one of James Dutton's children
will survive the 20th century. Will it be John, or is he destined to die in 1923?
In Yellowstone, Beth Dutton's role on the ranch is largely administrative. But in 1923,
women are integral to the day-to-day operations of the property. That means that Emma Dutton,
the wife of John Dutton the first, has a key part to play in running the ranch.
Emma is not only John's wife but also a caretaker of the ranch when the cowboys are away. She tends
to the horses and keeps the grounds in the absence of John, Jacob, and the others. On
the early twentieth century Yellowstone, the women are often left to take care of the ranch on their
own as caring for the herd keeps the ranch hands gone for days, weeks, or even months at a time.
We first meet James' son Spencer Dutton in Yellowstone in a flashback set in the year
1893. He wasn't born during the events of 1883, when the Duttons were making
their way across the plains. And when 1923 begins, he isn't living on the Dutton Ranch.
As the series starts, we learn that Spencer Dutton is a veteran of the Great War, what
we now call World War I, and is haunted by his experiences in combat. Since that time, Spencer
has been working in Africa as a big game hunter, hired to rid tourist locales of wild animals like
lions and leopards. His Aunt Cara, who raised him after the death of his mother, still misses him as
she writes to him across the world, wondering if his absence is some form of punishment.
We're not quite sure where Spencer's story in 1923 will take him,
but there's a fair chance he won't stay away from the ranch forever.
We haven't heard much about this Dutton member before,
but that doesn't stop him from having a lead role in 1923. Jack Dutton is
the son of John and Emma Dutton and, in the premiere episode, is engaged to be married.
"Why do I have to wait a week? Why can't the cattle wait a week?"
Raised by his parents on the Dutton Ranch, he maintains a
close relationship with his grand-aunt Cara and is a capable cowboy himself.
Though unconfirmed so far in 1923, it's at least possible that Jack is actually
a younger version of John Dutton Sr., the elderly ancestor we've
met in Yellowstone flashbacks. As the father of Kevin Costner's John Dutton,
John Dutton Sr. appeared in a touching scene atop a mountain as he said goodbye to the Yellowstone.
"Don't let 'em take it away from you, son. Not a goddamn inch."
In that scene, it's noted that John Sr. is in his 90s, which would put
his birthdate around the turn of the 20th century, lining up neatly with Jack's age.
On the other hand, Costner's John Dutton III notes that he's a sixth-generation Montanan,
meaning that Jack is actually his grandfather. Only time will tell.
In the first episode of 1923, Elizabeth Strafford is set to become the newest member
of the Dutton family. Her father is a friend of Dutton patriarch Jacob, and she's engaged
to be married to Jacob's grand-nephew Jack. The ceremony is postponed when Jack needs to join a
cattle drive. That's when Elizabeth really gets that being a rancher's wife will be no picnic.
If Elizabeth is the soon-to-be wife of the young cowboy Jack Dutton,
that may make her the mother or grandmother of Kevin Costner's John Dutton III on Yellowstone.
There's still plenty of story left to be told in 1923, but we fully expect the
series to tie up the Dutton Family Tree with the story of Elizabeth and Jack's marriage.
We're still not 100% certain how the rest of the Dutton family tree comes together,
but it won't be much past 1923 for us to start seeing some familiar faces. Whether
the young Jack Dutton is the same older man we've already met on Yellowstone,
or whether he's his father or someone else entirely, it's clear that those family figures
aren't far away. They may even pop up at some point over the course of 1923's two seasons.
But there are other options, as creator Tyler Sheridan could introduce a new family branch
we haven't seen coming. Regardless of how he is related to the characters in 1923, we know John
Dutton will manage the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch through the latter half of the 20th century.
"You know, the first Duttons to settle this valley, fighting was
all they knew. It's how they got here. How they kept the land once they did."
At some point in the 1950s, John Dutton II will sire his namesake,
John Dutton III. And in the late '80s or early '90s,
he'll pass ownership of the ranch to John III, as seen in Yellowstone Season 2.
"That's life. That's the way of it."
The next generation of Duttons on the family tree is perhaps the most diverse group in the
legacy of the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch. In the premiere episode of Yellowstone,
John Dutton III's eldest son Lee is killed, leaving Kayce and Jamie as the only male heirs.
Kayce was an outcast at the time, living with his Native American wife Monica on the Broken
Rock reservation. It's later revealed that Jamie Dutton was adopted. Whether his father
John will view Jamie as a true member of the family still remains to be seen.
On the other side of things, John III's daughter Beth is a ruthless corporate raider
and seems far less interested in the family's fortune where the ranch is concerned. She's
also unable to bear her own children. She has married Yellowstone's enforcer,
Rip Wheeler, a tough-as-nails cowboy who essentially runs the ranch.
"I believe in loving with your whole soul.
And destroying anything that wants to kill what you love."
When the time comes for John Dutton III to hand over the Yellowstone Ranch to his heirs,
it will be interesting to see to whom he'll leave it: Kayce, his son by blood; Jamie,
his son by choice; or his daughter Beth and son-in-law Rip Wheeler. Of course,
that assumes the ranch is still standing when all is said and done;
Yellowstone could culminate with the end of the legacy we're witnessing in 1923.
"I saw the end of us."
Beyond Kayce, Jamie, and Beth lies another generation of Duttons, who are just children
now. First and foremost among them is Tate Dutton, the now-teenaged son of Kayce and
Monica. As it stands, Tate is the only one of his generation to be related by blood that can
be traced back through John Dutton I in 1923 all the way to James and Margaret Dutton of 1883.
"You're gonna grow up and I'm gonna grow old and I'll just be this old shriveled
raisin in the corner telling you stories you don't wanna hear."
Tate does have a familial cousin beyond blood, however. Jamie's son by his former
assistant Christina, Wesley Dutton Jr., continues to carry the family name.
More distant is Carter, the young boy taken in by Beth Dutton and her husband Rip Wheeler.
But this generation of Duttons — by blood or otherwise — could spell doom for the family
and their legacy. When James Dutton first settled in Paradise Valley, it was said that,
"In seven generations, my people will rise up and take it back from you."
If Jack Dutton is the grandfather of John Dutton III, then Tate and his
generation could signal the end of the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch.