Practical Magic Family Tree Explained — The Owens Women, the Curse and Who Is Related to Whom

Correction (September 27, 2026): An earlier version treated Sally and Gillian’s link to Franny, Jet and Vincent as unconfirmed and left the long-lost brother in The Book of Magic unidentified. The Rules of Magic establishes Regina as Vincent and April Owens’s daughter, making Vincent the sisters’ grandfather and Franny and Jet their great-aunts. The article now separates that novel genealogy from what the 1998 film explains on screen. Thanks to Jessica for writing in.

The Owens family tree runs across four Alice Hoffman novels and two films, and it isn’t always obvious how any given character connects to any other. The novels establish a clear line from Vincent and April Owens to their daughter Regina and her daughters, Sally and Gillian. The 1998 film calls Frances and Jet the sisters’ aunts without explaining that fuller genealogy. An earlier gap, between Maria Owens in the 1600s and the later family, remains unmapped. Here’s what each version establishes.

Maria Owens — Where the Family Line Starts

Everything traces back to Maria Owens, the subject of Hoffman’s prequel novel Magic Lessons. Raised in rural England by a woman named Hannah Owens after being abandoned as an infant, Maria learned what the novel calls the “Nameless Arts” before following a man who’d betrayed her to Salem, Massachusetts — where she was accused of witchcraft and invoked the curse that follows her descendants ever after.

Simon & Schuster’s official synopsis for Magic Lessons confirms Maria had a daughter, Faith, who “has her mother’s gift” and is “born with a half-moon shaped birthmark.” Faith is the first confirmed link in the Owens bloodline after Maria herself.

The Centuries In Between

This is the honest gap in the family tree: Hoffman’s official synopses describe Maria as “the matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic,” but none of the publisher or author material spells out the specific generations connecting Faith Owens in 1600s Salem to the family Hoffman actually writes about, centuries later, in 1960s New York. Roughly three hundred years and an unknown number of Owens women separate them. Treat any claim of a fully mapped, generation-by-generation chain across that gap as speculation — it isn’t something Hoffman or her publisher has put on the record.

Susanna Owens and Her Three Children

The recorded thread picks back up with Susanna Owens, raising three children in New York City as the 1960s begin — the setting of The Rules of Magic. Hoffman’s own site describes them directly: Franny, pale-skinned with “blood red hair”; Jet, “shy and beautiful” with the ability to read other people’s thoughts; and Vincent, charismatic and “looking for trouble” from the moment he could walk. Susanna enforces a strict set of rules meant to keep her children safe from the family curse — no walking in the moonlight, no candles, and above all, never fall in love.

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by their aunts Franny and Jet. Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Hoffman’s site identifies Franny and Jet as the aunts in Practical Magic. Vincent’s “unexpected legacy” is explained in The Rules of Magic: he and their distant Owens cousin April are Regina’s parents. The novel later identifies Regina as Sally and Gillian’s mother. Franny and Jet are therefore the girls’ great-aunts by genealogy, though the family calls them “aunts.”

Sally and Gillian — The Novel Genealogy and the 1998 Film

In the novels, Vincent Owens and April Owens are Regina Owens’s parents, and Regina is Sally and Gillian’s mother. April belongs to a distant branch of the Owens family; she is also related to Vincent. This makes Vincent the sisters’ grandfather and his sisters Franny and Jet their great-aunts. Sally and Gillian still call the women “aunts,” the familiar title used throughout the series.

The 1998 film establishes that Sally and Gillian lose their parents and are raised by Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet. It does not explain Vincent and April’s parentage of Regina or spell out the intervening generation. Those details come from the novels and should not be treated as facts established on screen. The film’s use of “aunts” works as its family shorthand without settling the more precise book genealogy.

Sally and Gillian are sisters raised together by Franny and Jet after their parents’ deaths, and the central characters of both the 1998 film and Hoffman’s original 1995 novel.

Sally’s Daughters — Antonia and Kylie

The next confirmed generation belongs to Sally. The Book of Magic’s official synopsis names Antonia and Kylie Owens as part of “three generations of the Owens women” confronting the family curse together, alongside Franny and Jet. The 2026 sequel film casts Maisie Williams as Antonia and Joey King as Kylie — both recast from child actors who appeared briefly in the 1998 original — confirming the same two characters carry over into film continuity as adults.

Whether Gillian has children of her own is not something the source material confirms one way or the other in what’s been made public so far.

The Long-Lost Brother

The “long-lost brother” in The Book of Magic is Vincent Owens, Franny and Jet’s brother. The publisher’s synopsis leaves him unnamed, but Vincent’s identity is established in the novel. His place in the family tree does not depend on revealing how that book’s curse story ends.

The Owens Family Tree — What’s Actually Confirmed

• Maria Owens (1600s, Salem) — invokes the family curse; Faith is her daughter in Magic Lessons.
• The generations between Faith and Susanna are not fully mapped in the cited material.
• Susanna Owens (1960s, New York City) — mother of siblings Franny, Jet and Vincent.
• Vincent and April Owens — distant Owens cousins and parents of Regina Owens in The Rules of Magic.
• Regina Owens — mother of Sally and Gillian. Vincent is their grandfather; Franny and Jet are their great-aunts.
• Sally Owens — mother of Antonia and Kylie.

That is the novel family tree. The 1998 film calls Frances and Jet the girls’ aunts but does not explain the Vincent–April–Regina line.

For the curse itself — why Maria cast it, what it actually does, and what Practical Magic 2 has confirmed about its current status — our full Owens family curse explainer covers that separately. If you’re deciding how to approach Hoffman’s four novels, our reading order guide breaks down publication order versus the family’s actual chronological order.