American Dad family tree

Stan’s father is Jack Smith, who abandoned his family, and his mother is Betty Smith, Jack’s former wife.² The chart draws their marriage as ended, with Stan as their only child together.

Jack had another son. Rusty Smith is the son of Jack and a Cherokee woman he met in Santa Fe, which makes him Stan’s half-brother. Rusty lives in Arizona and brings his family to the Smiths every Thanksgiving.² The parent line to Rusty runs from Jack alone, and a blue dashed double line between the two men marks them as half-brothers. The list of characters also names a son of Rusty, Glen, who is Stan’s nephew. He is left off the chart to keep it readable.²

Francine’s side of the American Dad family tree has two pairs of parents. She was born to Nicholas Dawson and Cassandra Dawson, a rich couple who abandoned her as a baby so that they could fly first class on holiday.² Francine meets her birth father in the episode “Family Plan”, by which time Cassandra has died.² She was raised by a Chinese couple, Bàba Ling and Māma Ling, which is why her maiden name is Ling.²

The chart draws both pairs. A solid line runs to Francine from the Dawsons, and a line marked as adoption runs to her from the Lings. Her older sister Gwen Ling stands beside her, and the chart places Gwen under the Lings. The Dawsons are also the parents of Janet, Francine’s sister by birth, who is not drawn.²

Francine also carried a child for the neighbours. Greg Corbin and Terry Bates, the couple next door, have a daughter named Liberty Belle, called Libby, and Francine was their surrogate.² Libby is not drawn, because she belongs to the Corbin and Bates household, but she is one more family tie that runs through Francine.

This split between birth and upbringing is the clearest case in the series of a family tree that cannot be read from surnames. Francine is a Dawson by blood, a Ling by adoption and a Smith by marriage, and the chart shows all three.

Three members of the household are not Smiths by birth. Roger is an alien and a master of disguise who lives in the attic.^1,2 The list of characters gives him a father, Fred, who abandoned him and lives on Earth, and an uncle who runs a gas station in space.² Neither is drawn, and Roger stands in the house with a dotted line to Stan that reads lives under his roof.

Klaus Heisler is the family goldfish with the mind of a man. He was an East German ski jumper until the CIA moved his mind into a goldfish during the 1986 Winter Olympics, to keep him from winning gold.⁴ He is often the most sensible member of the house, and he has a rivalry with Roger that Wikipedia likens to one between siblings.⁴

Jeff Fischer begins as Hayley’s boyfriend and joined the main cast in the seventh season.¹ In the episode “100 A.D.” he and Hayley elope, and they trick Stan and Francine out of fifty thousand dollars.³ Jeff’s father is Henry Fischer, a marijuana grower in Raleigh, North Carolina, and his mother left him early in life.² Neither parent is drawn, so that Jeff can stand beside Hayley. The chart moves Jeff into the outline of the Smith house from the wedding on.

Jeff’s place in the family takes one more turn. Roger once threw him into the beam of a spaceship meant for Roger himself, and Jeff was carried off into space.³ Later, when Jeff and Hayley try for a child, Jeff turns out not to be human, and in “Roger’s Baby” Roger carries him as a surrogate so that he can be born again as a man.^3,2 Hayley then decides that she is not ready for a baby, and the couple has no children on the chart.³

American Dad premiered on Fox on 6 February 2005, after Super Bowl XXXIX. It moved to TBS for its twelfth season in 2014 and stayed there until season 21 ended on 24 March 2025. Fox brought it back on 22 February 2026, and Wikipedia reports that Fox has renewed it through its twenty-fifth season.¹

Season numbers are not a safe guide to the family tree. Wikipedia counts the return to Fox as season 22, and CBR, reporting the return date, calls it season 20.^1,5 The article on Hayley places her wedding in the sixth season, while the article on the series says that Jeff joined the main cast in the seventh.^3,1 The chart therefore names its story points after eras and episodes instead of season numbers.

A square is a man and a circle is a woman. A double line is a marriage, and a line crossed through it is a marriage that ended, as with Jack and Betty. Lines that drop from a couple lead to their children, and the line from the Lings to Francine is marked as an adoption.

The four story positions change the household rather than the bloodline. At the first position Jeff stands outside the blue outline as Hayley’s boyfriend. From the position named after “100 A.D.” he stands inside it and the couple line between him and Hayley becomes a marriage. At the TBS position his state reads born again as a human, and the gold arrow from Roger appears.

The blue outline is the Smith house. It holds everyone who lives there, whether born into the family or not, and the coloured lines say how the others came to be there. A dotted purple arrow runs from Roger to Stan, a dotted teal arrow from Klaus to Steve, and a gold dashed arrow from Roger to Jeff for the rebirth. Read this way, the American Dad family tree has two kinds of family in one house, and the chart shows both. To build a family tree of another series, open this chart in the editor or start from the story charts. The symbols are set out in the genogram symbols.