Both Chris and Carine McCandless were Members of the Same Branch of the McCandless Family.
It would appear that the McCandless family has had a difficult time. Carine acknowledges that her parents may have been caring but was frequently out of control, and she claims that Walt’s younger sister was not an exception to this rule. Carine and Chris were both taken aback when they discovered that their family history was intended to remain a secret. Walt was a happily married father of six children, although he and his wife Billie both worked for Hughes Aircraft.
The fact that they were married did not prevent them from having an affair and having a child outside of their marriage. Walt split his time extensively between his two households in order to make room for the children who had recently been born into both of them. At the time of Walt’s passing, Carine was the oldest of his eight children and the oldest overall.