Family of Joe Biden


The family of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, includes members prominent in law, education, activism and politics. Biden's immediate family was the first family of the United States from 2021 to 2025 during Biden's presidency. They were also the second family of the United States from 2009 to 2017 during Biden's vice presidency under Barack Obama. Biden's family is mostly descended from the British Isles, with most of their ancestors coming from Ireland and England, and a smaller number descending from the French.
Of Biden's sixteen great-great-grandparents, ten of them were born in Ireland. He is descended from the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth. One of Biden's great-great-great-grandfathers was born in Sussex, England, and emigrated to Maryland in the United States by 1820.
In the closing months of the Biden administration, several members of his family, including his son, his siblings and his in-laws, were issued presidential pardons.

Wives

Neilia Hunter Biden

Neilia Hunter Biden, the first wife of Joe Biden, was born on July 28, 1942. The couple married on August 27, 1966. After the wedding, the Bidens moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden was on the New Castle County Council. The couple had three children: Joseph Robinette "Beau" III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina "Amy". Biden campaigned to unseat the U.S. Senator from Delaware J. Caleb Boggs; Neilia was described by The News Journal as the "brains" of his victorious campaign.
On December 18, 1972, while her husband was still a U.S. senator-elect, Neilia was driving with Naomi, Beau, and Hunter to buy a Christmas tree. Neilia "drove into the path" of a tractor-trailer, "possibly because her head was turned and she didn't see the oncoming truck". Neilia and the children were taken to Wilmington General Hospital. Neilia and Naomi died upon arrival, but her two sons survived with serious injuries. Biden was sworn in to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1973, at the hospital where his sons were being treated.

Jill Biden

Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden, the second and current wife of Joe Biden, was born on June 3, 1951. She met Biden on a blind date in March 1975.
She and Joe Biden were married by a Catholic priest on June 17, 1977, at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York City. This was four and a half years after his first wife and infant daughter died; Joe had proposed several times before she accepted, as she was wary of entering the public spotlight, anxious to remain focused on her own career, and initially hesitant to take on the commitment of raising his two young sons who had survived the accident.

Children

Joe Biden fathered four children from two marriages. His firstborn daughter, Naomi Christina Biden, died in December 1972, in the same car accident as her mother. His firstborn son and first child, Joseph "Beau" R. Biden III, died in May 2015 from brain cancer. The Bidens' two surviving children include one son from his first marriage, Robert Hunter Biden, and one daughter from his second, Ashley Blazer Biden.

Beau Biden

Joseph "Beau" Robinette Biden III was born on February 3, 1969, in Wilmington, Delaware. Beau suffered multiple broken bones in the car crash that killed his mother and sister, but he survived after spending several months in a hospital. Beau went on to graduate from Archmere Academy, his father's high school alma mater, and the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. He was also a graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, as was his father. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Steven McAuliffe of the United States District Court of New Hampshire. From 1995 to 2004, he worked at the United States Department of Justice in Philadelphia, first as Counsel to the Office of Policy Development and later as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
He married Hallie Olivere in 2002.
In his first bid at political office, Biden ran for Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. Biden's opponent was a veteran state prosecutor and Assistant U.S. Attorney, Ferris Wharton. Major issues in the campaign included the candidates' experience and proposed efforts to address sex offenders, Internet predators, senior abuse and domestic abuse. Biden won the election by approximately five percentage points.
Beau played an active role in his father's 2008 vice presidential campaign, speaking at the Democratic National Convention after Joe Biden was nominated for Vice President of the United States. He recounted the auto accident that killed his mother and sister and the subsequent parenting commitment his father made to his sons, a speech at which many delegates wept.
On November 2, 2010, he was easily reelected to a second term as Delaware Attorney General, beating Independent Party of Delaware candidate Doug Campbell by a large margin.
For the final few years of his life, Biden suffered from a brain tumor. In May 2010, he was admitted to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, after complaining of a headache, numbness, and paralysis. Officials said he had suffered a "mild stroke". Later that month, Biden was transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and kept for observation for several days.
In August 2013, Biden was admitted to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and diagnosed with brain cancer, after experiencing what White House officials called "an episode of disorientation and weakness". A lesion was removed at that time. Biden had radiation and chemotherapy treatments and the cancer remained stable. On May 20, 2015, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, because of a recurrence of brain cancer. He died there ten days later, on May 30, 2015, at the age of 46. His funeral was held at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware, on June 6, 2015. He was buried at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.

Hunter Biden

Robert Hunter Biden was born on February 4, 1970, in Wilmington, Delaware. Along with his mother and siblings, he was in the 1972 crash, sustaining injuries to his skull. Along with his older brother, he survived after receiving months of medical treatment. Like his father and brother, Hunter attended Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Georgetown University in 1992. During the year after he graduated from college, he served as a Jesuit volunteer at a church in Portland, Oregon, and met Kathleen Buhle, whom he married in 1993. After attending Georgetown University Law Center for one year, he transferred to Yale Law School and graduated in 1996. He and Kathleen divorced in 2017 and, in 2019, he married Melissa Cohen.
After law school, Hunter accepted a position at bank holding company MBNA America, a major contributor to his father's political campaigns. By 1998, Biden had risen to the rank of executive vice president.
During the 2020 election, the Trump administration pointed out that Hunter Biden had connections with the Ukrainian holding company Burisma.
In September 2024, Hunter Biden, pleaded guilty to all nine charges in his federal tax evasion case, surprising prosecutors as they prepared for trial. He previously denied deliberately evading $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019. Biden had been indicted with three felony tax offences and six misdemeanor offences, which included tax evasion and filing false returns. Facing up to 17 years in prison, Biden was set for sentencing on December 16, 2024.
On December 1, 2024, President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son Hunter. The pardon covered all federal offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024, and included his tax charges, gun charges, and any other potential crimes committed within that time.
The pardon received bipartisan criticism from members of Congress as harming the justice system. In the months leading up to Hunter's scheduled sentencing, the President had made repeated statements that he would not use the pardon authority for his own son. He and his staff continued to state that there would be no pardon for Hunter as late as November, although internal staff discussions affirmed that the option for a pardon would remain on the table even as Biden publicly stated otherwise.

Naomi "Amy" Biden

Naomi Christina Biden, nicknamed "Amy", was born on November 8, 1971, in Wilmington, Delaware. She died in the same car crash as her mother, Neilia, on December 18, 1972, when she was just over a year old.

Ashley Biden

Ashley Blazer Biden was born on June 8, 1981, in Wilmington, Delaware. She is the only child from Joe Biden's second marriage. Ashley Biden attended Wilmington Friends School, a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends in Wilmington. When she was in elementary school, she discovered that the cosmetics company Bonne Bell tested its products on animals. She wrote a letter to the company asking them to change their policy on animal testing. She later got involved in dolphin conservation, inspiring her father to work with Congresswoman Barbara Boxer to write and pass the 1990 Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act. Ashley Biden made an appearance before members of the United States Congress to lobby for the legislation. She is married to physician Howard Krein.

Grandchildren

Joe Biden has married twice and fathered four children. His seven grandchildren come from his two sons, five from Hunter and two from Beau. He is the first president to become a great-grandfather while in office.
  • from Beau Biden,
  • * Two grandchildren with wife Hallie Olivere
  • **Natalie Naomi Biden
  • **Robert Hunter Biden II
  • from Hunter Biden
  • * Three granddaughters with first wife Kathleen Buhle
  • **Naomi King Biden
  • ***One great-grandson with husband Peter Neal
  • **** William Brannon Neal IV
  • **Finnegan Biden
  • **Roberta Mabel "Maisy" Biden
  • * One granddaughter with Lunden Roberts
  • **Navy Joan Roberts
  • * One grandson with second wife Melissa Cohen
  • **Beau Biden