‘Yellowstone’: Here’s Everything We Know About John Dutton’s Family Tree

With the most recent season of “Yellowstone” and “1883” wrapped up, it’s time to dive into how James and John Dutton are connected in the family tree.

Fans have rooted for John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and his family over the course of four “Yellowstone” seasons. Now, with the debut of “1883,” we can understand how John’s family came to be Montana ranchers.

We know it all started with James Dutton (Tim McGraw) who moved his family from Tennesee out west to pursue a dream. By the end of “1883” Season 1, James realizes that that dream lies in Montana, where he’s buried his daughter, Elsa.

Fast forward one-hundred-and-forty-odd years, and we see modern-day John Dutton ruling this vast ranching empire that James helped build. But how many generations of Duttons put in the work to make the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch as powerful as it is?

At a Glance

• Tim McGraw has provded conflicting reports on his realtionship to John Dutton in the family tree.
• Taylor Sheridan likely rearranged the family tree to make room for “1932.”

Tim McGraw Says Two Different Thing About John Dutton and the Family Tree

Earlier this year, Tim McGraw sat down with Outsider to talk all things “Yellowstone” and “1883.” By then, he’d appeared in a few episodes of the prequel series and even appeared in flashback sequences on the flagship show. And during that conversation, McGraw explicitly said that James is John Dutton’s great-grandfather.

Based on that information, we here at Outsider created the following graphic. It shows how James’s son John Sr., played by five-year-old Audie Rick, is Costner’s John’s grandfather. In between them is John Dutton II (Dabney Coleman), who we only see an older version of in “Yellowstone.”

Disclaimer: This family tree was built using information presented in both shows. Any birthdays we don’t know (which is pretty much every single character outside of Elsa Dutton) are calculated with actor birthdays and ages to give estimated dates.

BUT, earlier this month, Paramount released the new “Yellowstone” Season 4 Blu-Ray DVD. Included in the Blu-Ray version was several minutes of bonus content, including a featurette called “Bloodline: Yellowstone Origins.”

In the featurette, McGraw talks about the flashback sequences he appears in on the show. And, per CinemaBlend, this is how McGraw starts off the conversation about his character.

“I play John Dutton’s great-great-grandfather,” McGraw says in the feature. “Our family is the first to discover Yellowstone and settle it. And in doing that, we are the first to really defend it and fight people off, and try to establish it and then survive.”

Hold up — GREAT-great-grandfather? That’s news to us, considering McGraw told Outsider a few months ago that it was great-grandfather. Maybe he misspoke, either back then or now in the featurette. But you’d think with the featurette, the showrunners would’ve chosen to edit that out or have McGraw say the line again, correctly. They left it in, though, which leaves us to believe that the information in the featurette is newly updated canon.

How ‘1932’ Affects John Dutton and the Family Tree

The main reason we can think of for this change is because of “1932,” Taylor Sheridan’s newest prequel series. Sheridan’s in the middle of writing the new series right now, which could debut this fall. It’s supposed to cover a “new generation” of Duttons during the Great Depression and Prohibition.

So, while writing the new series, did Sheridan hit a snag in the Dutton family tree? Perhaps he saw the need for a generation between John Sr. (Audie Rick) and Dabney Coleman’s John Dutton. Maybe it helps flesh out the story a bit more. Or it ages up John Sr. in a way that shows his character growth differently.

At this point, the only confirmation we’ll receive will be the debut of “1932” itself. Once we know which generation of Duttons it focuses on, we should be able to update the above graphic with the correct family tree.