Dallas · A Viewer's Companion
Two clans, one ranch, all that oil. Here's who's a Ewing, who's a Barnes — and who's somehow both.
The granddaddy of all primetime soaps runs on one grudge: Jock Ewing struck it rich, and Digger Barnes swears he was robbed — of the oil and of Miss Ellie. Add four Ewing sons (one of them a secret, one of them mostly on another show), two men named John Ross Ewing, and a pair of Shepard sisters sharing one husband, and you need a map. Gold borders are Ewing blood, dusk blue means married in, and red is the Barnes clan — including the Barnes who married into Southfork itself.
Spoiler-safe mode is on: death markers, secret-reveal labels and finale outcomes are hidden on this chart and in the notes below. Use the “Spoilers” button in the top bar to show everything again.
Why everyone seems related (or at war)
Five things to hold onto, and the rest of the series is just cocktails at the Oil Barons' Ball.
Barnes v. Ewing: the forty-year grudge
Back in the wildcatting days, Digger Barnes could smell oil and Jock Ewing could sign contracts. Jock ended up with the company — and with Miss Ellie, the girl Digger loved. Digger's son Cliff inherits the vendetta, and the pilot lights the fuse: Digger's daughter Pam elopes with Bobby Ewing.
Who shot J.R.?
The Season 3 finale put two bullets in J.R. and made the whole planet wait a summer (plus an actors' strike) for the answer. It was Kristin Shepard — Sue Ellen's little sister and J.R.'s discarded mistress — and she dodged charges by announcing she was pregnant with his child.
The dream season
Bobby dies at the end of Season 8 — run down by a car while saving Pam. The show mourns him for a full year... then Pam wakes up and finds him alive in the shower: all of Season 9 was her dream, and everything in it is officially erased.
The fourth Ewing son
Ranch foreman Ray Krebbs spends three seasons as hired help — until Amos Krebbs turns up in Season 4 with papers proving Ray is Jock's son from a wartime romance with Margaret Hunter. Overnight, the cowboy becomes an heir (and Lucy's uncle — awkward, given their history).
The Knots Landing branch
Gary, the middle son who never fit, and his young bride Valene ran off to California — and into their own show, Knots Landing, for fourteen seasons. Their daughter Lucy stayed behind at Southfork, raised (and spoiled) by Jock and Miss Ellie.
Names you'll mix up
Half this cast shares a name, a ranch, or a sister. Keep these straight.
Jock vs. Digger
The two patriarchs. Jock is the Ewing in the Stetson who kept the oil; Digger is the Barnes who found it and drank the grudge. Everything else is their fault.
J.R. vs. John Ross
Same name, two people: J.R. is John Ross Ewing Jr., the scheming eldest son. John Ross III is his little boy with Sue Ellen — the most fought-over baby in Texas.
Gary vs. Ray
The two ranch-minded blonds. Gary is the middle son who left for Knots Landing; Ray is the foreman who stayed — and turns out to be a Ewing son himself.
Sue Ellen vs. Kristin
The Shepard sisters. Sue Ellen married J.R.; Kristin had the affair with him — and answered television's most famous question with a revolver.
Pam vs. Katherine
Half-sisters through their mother, Rebecca Wentworth. Pam is the Barnes who married Bobby for love; Katherine is the Wentworth heiress who wanted Bobby enough to try murder.
Cliff vs. Clayton
The two C-name outsiders. Cliff Barnes spends every season losing to J.R.; Clayton Farlow is the courtly San Angelo rancher who becomes the second Mr. Miss Ellie.
Christopher vs. John Ross
The two little boys of the later seasons: John Ross is J.R.'s blood heir; Christopher is Bobby and Pam's adopted son — secretly the baby of Kristin Shepard, of all people.
Beyond the two clans
Not on the tree, but forever circling it.
Dusty Farlow
Clayton's rodeo-star son · Jared Martin
Sue Ellen's great escape from J.R. Presumed dead in a plane crash, he rides back into her life a season later.
Jenna Wade
Bobby's first love · Morgan Fairchild, later Priscilla Presley
The girl from before Pam, forever re-entering at the worst moment — three actresses, one eternal maybe. She ends up married to Ray.
Katherine Wentworth
Pam's half-sister · Morgan Brittany
Wentworth money, big shoulder pads, and a fixation on her sister's husband. She's behind the wheel in the Season 8 finale.
Charts the original CBS run of Dallas, 1978–91 — all fourteen seasons, so spoilers run through the finale. The 2012–14 TNT revival, in which John Ross and Christopher return as adults, is a separate series and only gets this footnote. Family details verified against the Dallas wiki (dallas.fandom.com); portraits are from the wiki, self-hosted. Christopher appears as a monogram — the wiki has no usable portrait of him from the original run.