The family of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, includes members prominent in law, education, activism and politics.

[4] 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.

The couple had three children: Joseph Robinette "Beau" III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina "Amy".

[6] 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.

[11] 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.

[12] This was four and a half years after his first wife and infant daughter died;[13] 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.

His firstborn daughter (third child), Naomi Christina Biden, died in December 1972, in the same car accident as her mother.

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,[17] where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.

After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Steven McAuliffe of the United States District Court of New Hampshire.

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 May 20, 2015, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, because of a recurrence of brain cancer.

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 law school, Hunter accepted a position at bank holding company MBNA America, a major contributor to his father's political campaigns.

[33][34] During the 2020 election, the Trump administration pointed out that Hunter Biden had connections with the Ukrainian holding company Burisma.

[35] In September 2024, Hunter Biden, pleaded guilty to all nine charges in his federal tax evasion case, surprising prosecutors as they prepared for trial.

[39][40][41] 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.

[16] Ashley Biden made an appearance before members of the United States Congress to lobby for the legislation.

[52][53] Major is a rescue dog who was adopted from the Delaware Humane Association by Joe and Jill Biden in 2018, but he was given to family friends after a biting incident at the White House.

[58] Joseph Sr. was initially wealthy but suffered financial setbacks around the time Joe Jr. was born,[59][60][61] and for several years the family lived with Jean's parents.

[citation needed] In the final minutes of his presidency, Joe Biden issued pardons for his three siblings as well as their spouses.

[81] Two other of Biden's third paternal great-grandfathers, Jesse Robinett and Thomas Randle, were slave owners in 19th-century Maryland.

[82][83] A possible connection may also exist to the family of a William Henry Biden, who was from Houghton, Cambridgeshire, and lived from 1791 to 1843.

[84] This William Henry was a son of John Biden (died 28 July 1796) and his wife Ann Beaumont, who had married in 1781.

[2] Ambrose was born in Olyphant, Pennsylvania in 1883, and attended Santa Clara University where he was a star quarterback on their football team.

[92] Joe's matrilineal great-grandfather (Geraldine's father), Edward Francis Blewitt,[93] the child of Irish emigrants from Rappagh, Ballina, County Mayo, was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate.