The complex web of marriages and names behind the Clinton family

Countries & Cities · Published 12 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Before becoming the 42nd US President, Bill Clinton’s lineage was defined by a series of complicated marriages and name changes. From a father who died in a car crash to a mother who discovered her husband's previous marriages decades later, the family's history is a labyrinth of connections.

The lineage of Bill Clinton is marked by a series of overlapping marriages and legal complexities. A car accident killed his father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a travelling heavy equipment salesman, in May 1946, three months prior to Bill's birth. Blythe had been married four times; his third wife, Wanetta Ellen Alexander, gave birth to a daughter, Sharon Lee Blythe Pettijohn, in May 1941. However, Blythe had married Virginia Dell Cassidy in September 1943, while still legally married to Wanetta, as his divorce from her was not finalized until April 1944.

Bill Clinton's mother, Virginia Dell Cassidy, was born in Bodcaw, Arkansas, on June 6, 1923. Following Blythe's death, she married car salesman Roger Clinton Sr. in 1950. Following a short divorce and subsequent remarriage in 1962, 16-year-old William Jefferson Blythe III legally took his stepfather's surname, becoming William Jefferson Clinton.

The family's political prominence grew through the careers of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton served as the 67th US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and as a US Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. She made history in 2016 as the first woman from a major political party to be nominated for president in the US. Though some suggest a biological link to the Founding Fathers, the Clintons connect to George Clinton only via Bill's stepfather, Roger, the former Vice President's first cousin five times removed.

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