Ty Burrell’s Family Guide: Meet the Actor’s Parents, Wife Holly Burrell, Their 2 Kids and More

Although Ty Burrell loves his sitcom family from the hit TV series Modern Family, he is also a proud husband to Holly Burrell and father to two daughters, Frances and Greta.

Ty was born in Grants Pass, Oregon, in August 1967 to mom Sheri Burrell and his late father Gary Burrell, who passed away in 1989. The actor also has a younger brother named Duncan Burrell.

In August 2000, Ty married Holly and the pair went on to adopt daughters Frances and Greta in March 2010 and March 2012, respectively.

Following the end of Modern Family in 2020, Ty moved with Holly and their two daughters to Salt Lake City, Utah — a decision she says he does not regret.

“It’s just been spectacular. It’s been lovely and a great place to raise the kids,” he told People in August 2025, noting that his parents weren’t really outdoorsy people, but he has grown to love it. “So at first, when we moved here, it almost felt like cosplay, like we were pretending to be people who were outdoorsy, and now we really truly love it.”

Keep scrolling to learn more about Ty’s family:

Sheri Burrell

Ty’s mother is Sheri, who was married to Gary from 1965 until his death in 1989. Sheri worked as a teacher during Ty and his brother’s childhood.

According to a 2014 interview, Ty said that his mother taught him when he was 10 and “pushed [him] hard” in school.

“In retrospect, it was a situation where she could have let me off the hook, because I was maybe a little vulnerable. But she wouldn’t allow me to slack off,” he told Tes Magazine at the time, noting she was “methodical” in her teaching and everyone else was “so positive about her” in the community. “One of the many things she taught me as my mother, which I also saw in her teaching, was the establishment of compassionate boundaries. I do this as a parent and she taught me that boundaries are a form of love.”

Gary Burrell

Ty’s father Gary, married to Sheri from 1965 to 1989, was a family therapist who worked in the foster system. When Ty and his brother were young, his father and mother bought a country store in the woods — which ultimately inspired him when it came to working on the new Audible original series The Good Life.

“I can still see my father behind the counter, greeting everyone in town with a big smile,” he recalled in a June 2025 interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Times weren’t always easy, but my parents took chances. Big chances.”

Gary passed away at the age of 48, when Ty was just a college student at the University of Oregon.

“It was so hard to lose him,” Ty told the outlet at the time. “My dad was the kind of shopkeeper who would ask questions about every single person’s life. He was a natural therapist, and all their defenses melted away. He was really beloved and I still miss him. He was such a memorable person. Just a deeply funny, deeply kind person.”

Duncan Burrell

Ty’s younger brother, Duncan, is co-owner of several hospitality businesses in Utah, including a craft cocktail bar called Bar X and Beer Bar, a lively beer garden. Duncan made a brief appearance on Modern Family as a guest star named Carl in 2013 and also appeared as himself on an episode of Celebrity Dish in 2013.

While Duncan’s life remains out of the spotlight, he married Kristine Noel in May 2010 and the pair have one child together.

Holly Burrell

Ty met Holly in the late ‘90s when they were both working at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC.

“It was the opening night of a play we were in. We were understudying lovers in Twelfth Night,” Ty recalled to Redbook in August 2010, noting he knew he wanted to marry Holly on their “first date”

While the pair relocated to New York City for acting at first, Holly decided after a couple years that the entertainment industry wasn’t for her.

“You have to really want to do it and I just didn’t have the thing you need,” she explained to The Salt Lake Tribune in 2015. “I was interested in other things.”

After acting, Holly got into cooking and ended up studying at the French Culinary Institute at the International Culinary Center in New York. She graduated with honors from the pastry program. Holly, Ty and Duncan are all part-owners of Bar-X and Beer Bar in Salt Lake City.

Ty and Holly ended up tying the knot in 2000 and adopted daughters Frances and Greta in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

“My wife has taught me about unconditional love,” Ty said in an interview with Good Housekeeping. “When there’s a conflict, there’s never a thought that we won’t work it out.”

Frances and Greta Burrell

Ty and Holly adopted daughter Frances in March 2010, followed by daughter Greta in March 2012.

In March 2025, Ty opened up about how traveling with Frances and Greta has deepened their bond.

“They’re now teenagers and they like to travel, but they have their phones, which is hard to get a real adventure going,” he told Morning Honey at the time. “I traveled recently with my daughter. It was her spring break, so I took one of them to a place and my wife took the other. We had an absolute ball. We went to Chicago, but it was so fun! I am having conversations with them at this age that we wouldn’t have talked about otherwise.”