Horton, Kiriakis, Brady, DiMera family loves, feuds on Days of our Lives
Credit: Image: Jesse Grant, Jill Johnson, Howard Wise/JPI

The Horton family is the core Salem family with connections to the Brady, Kiriakis, and DiMera clans.

Days of our Lives just celebrated their 54th anniversary which had Soaps.com looking at the interconnected families of Salem. It all started with original core family the Hortons, but their children and their children’s children have had many relationships with members of other legacy families such as the Bradys, the Kiriakises and the DiMeras, whose arrivals helped change Salem forever.

Tom and Alice Horton started it all

The Hortons are a core Days of our Lives family who have been in Salem since day one, which was November 8, 1965. Tom (Macdonald Carey) and Alice Horton (Frances Reid) were the patriarch and matriarch of the Horton clan until doctor and former University Chief of Staff Tom’s death in 1994 and Alice’s death in 2010. They had five children Tommy Horton Jr. (John Lupton), Mickey Horton (John Clarke; John Ingle), Bill Horton (Edward Malloy; John Martin), Addie Horton (Patricia Huston; Patricia Barry) and Marie Horton (Lanna Saunders; Maree Cheatham). The mainstays of Salem helped raise many of their grandchildren and started the tradition of hanging personalized family Christmas bulbs on the tree, which continues to this day and is seen as an honor when a new character is welcomed into the family with their own bulb. And Alice’s legendary doughnuts are still raved about and baked by family.

The next Horton generation

As the children became adults, they started families of their own. Addie Horton married Doug Williams (Bill Hayes) and they had a daughter Hope Williams (Kristian Alfonso). After Addie’s death in 1974, Doug went on to marry Addie’s daughter with Ben Olson (Robert Knapp), and Hope’s half-sister, Julie Olson (Susan Seaforth Hayes). Julie previously had a child, David Banning (last played by Gregg Marx), with the married David Martin (Clive Clerk). Meanwhile, Mickey Horton married a couple of times before finally settling down with Maggie Simmons (Suzanne Rogers), who would go on to marry Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston) after Mickey’s 2010 death. Mickey never adopted Maggie’s daughter with Neil Curtis (Joseph Gallison), Sarah Horton (played by Linsey Godfrey since 2018) though the couple adopted Melissa Horton (last played by Camilla Scott) together. As for son Bill, he fathered Mike Horton (last played by Roark Critchlow) after he raped Mickey’s then-wife Laura Spencer (last played by Jaime Lyn Bauer). He and Laura eventually became an official couple and brought Jennifer Horton (Melissa Reeves) into the world. He also fathered Lucas Roberts Horton (Bryan Dattilo) with Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow). Tommy had one daughter, Sandy Horton (last played by Pamela Roylance), with wife Kitty Horton (Regina Gleason), and Marie had daughter Jessica Blake (Jean Bruce Scott), whose son, Nick Fallon (Blake Berris), was Julie’s cousin.

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Hortons meet the Bradys, Kiriakises & DiMeras

The following generations of Hortons went on to procreate as well, many with members of the other prominent Salem families. Julie’s son David had his own son Eli Grant (Lamon Archey), who Julie didn’t know about until he was an adult. Sarah Horton recently gave birth to Eric Brady’s (Greg Vaughan) child, Mackenzie (Mickey for short), though she’s keeping that a secret from him, claiming her father-in-law Victor Kiriakis’ nephew Xander Cook Kiriakis (Paul Telfer) is the father. Lucas had two children with Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney), Will and Allie. Will Horton (Chandler Massey) had a daughter of his own with Gabi Hernandez (Camila Banus) named Arianna. They are co-parenting her along with Will’s husband Sonny Kiriakis (Freddie Smith). Lucas’ sister Jennifer Horton had two children with Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford), JJ and Abigail. JJ Deveraux (Casey Moss) remains childfree, but Abby married and had her own children, Thomas and Charlotte, with Chad DiMera (Billy Flynn). Jennifer’s cousin and best friend Hope married Bo Brady (Peter Reckell) and they went on to have three children, Shawn Douglas, Zack, and Ciara, all of whom are part of the Horton and Brady families but also the Kiriakises as Bo’s biological father was Victor Kiriakis. Shawn Douglas Brady (Brandon Beemer) married and had his own daughter Claire Brady (Olivia Rose Shawn, Belle and Claire on Days of our LivesKeegan) with Belle Black (Martha Madison), daughter of John Black (Drake Hogestyn), who was thought to be a Brady for a time, and Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall), who was married to Roman Brady (Josh Taylor) for years. Both remain honorary members of the Brady clan. Ciara Brady (Victoria Konefal) has no children at the moment, but she has fallen madly in love with the former town pariah, Ben Weston (Robert Scott Wilson), aka the Necktie Killer, who tried to strangle her cousin Will to death. Sadly Zack Brady (Spencer and Garrett Gray) died after getting hit by a car when he was a child. Bo also had a daughter with Billie Reed (last played by Lisa Rinna), Chelsea Brady (Rachel Melvin), whose maternal grandmother is Kate Roberts. It seems everyone is intertwined in Salem.

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Salem feuds and betrayals

It hasn’t been all love between the families in Salem though. Victor Kiriakis was often a thorn in the Bradys’ side, as though he always loved matriarch Caroline, he forced her daughter Kimberly Brady (Patsy Pease) to have sex with him, framed her daughter Kayla Brady (Mary Beth Evans) for a murder, and planned the murder of her granddaughter Sami Brady, among other nefarious crimes. The Bradys’ also had a long-standing feud with the DiMeras going back to their ancestors Santo DiMera (James Scott) and Colleen Brady (Alison Sweeney). The family connections continued throughout the years including Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) brainwashing Hope into believing she was Princess Gina (a storyline that’s recently been resurrected), as well as brainwashing Bo. The families will forever be bound however as Sami Brady fell in love with and had children, Johnny and Sydney, with EJ DiMera.

What have been your favorite family feuds, loves, and friendships? Share your memories of Days of our Lives’ core families with us below and check out the rest of the history for Days of our Lives from the very beginning onward in Soaps.com’s episode guide for DOOL 1965 – 1969.