The Kennedy Family Tree, Explained

They are as close as America gets to royalty — and to tragedy. In a single generation the Kennedys produced a president, an attorney general, and the longest-serving liberal lion of the Senate; in that same span they buried four of the nine siblings to a war, a plane crash, and two assassinations. This guide walks through who's who across four generations, from the Boston-Irish ward bosses who started it all, through patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy and his famous nine children, to the grandchildren — a U.S. health secretary, ambassadors, and activists — who carry the name today.

How to read the graph

Each circle is a person. Lines connect parents to children, and spouses to each other. Joseph Sr. and Rose sit at the top with nine children fanned out beneath them; follow any one down to see the grandchildren. Click a node to focus on it; drag to rearrange the layout.

Generations 1 & 2 — Boston-Irish roots and the patriarch

The dynasty's politics were inherited. Both of Joseph Sr.'s grandfathers-in-spirit were Boston power brokers: P.J. Kennedy, a saloon-owner-turned-ward-boss, and John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a two-term mayor whose daughter Rose would become the family matriarch. Their child Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. — a self-made tycoon, the first SEC chairman, and ambassador to Britain — poured his thwarted political ambitions into his sons. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy lived to 104 and outlived four of her nine children.

Generation 3 — the famous nine

Joseph and Rose had nine children, and the family's glory and grief both run through this row. Joseph Jr., the intended heir, was killed flying a WWII bomb mission in 1944; Kathleen "Kick" died in a 1948 plane crash; Rosemary was hidden away after a disastrous 1941 lobotomy. The survivors became a political machine: John F. Kennedy reached the White House, Robert F. Kennedy the office of attorney general, and Edward "Ted" Kennedy a 47-year Senate career. The sisters were forces too — Eunice founded the Special Olympics.

The brothers in politics

For a decade the Kennedy brothers were American politics. JFK's "Camelot" presidency ended in Dallas in 1963; RFK was assassinated in 1968 moments after winning the California primary; and Ted, the youngest, carried the family's standard in the Senate for nearly half a century, becoming the "Lion of the Senate" even as the 1969 Chappaquiddick crash ended his own presidential hopes.

Generation 4 — the grandchildren

The third generation kept the family in public life — and in the headlines. Caroline Kennedy, JFK's only surviving child, became ambassador to Japan and Australia; her brother John F. Kennedy Jr., "America's most eligible bachelor," died with his wife Carolyn in a 1999 plane crash. RFK's children include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. And through Maria Shriver — Eunice's daughter — the dynasty briefly bridged to Hollywood and the Republican Party: she married actor and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A century in dates

Generation by generation

From Honey Fitz to a cabinet secretary

Trace the line from the old Boston mayor at the top of the tree down to a sitting U.S. cabinet secretary, and a century of American political ambition compresses into a single chain of parents and children.