Antecedents of depressive symptomatology in childhood and adolescence were examined in aprospective longitudinal study of at-risk youth (n = 168) from families of lowersocioeconomic status. Relations between family context factors, maternal depressive symptoms,and depressive symptoms in childhood and adolescence were examined, with a focus on earlyfamily relationship factors rarely available for analysis in longitudinal data sets. Results suggest thepossibility of etiological differences between depressive symptoms in childhood and inadolescence. Depressive symptomatology in childhood was predicted by the overall familycontext. Cumulative effects of maternal depressive symptomatology, early care lacking inemotional supportiveness, abuse, and family stressors were observed. Depressive symptomatologyin adolescence, on the other hand, was specifically associated with maternal depression and earlycare lacking in emotional supportiveness. Moreover, an intriguing sex difference emerged:maternal depressive symptomatology was strongly associated with depressive symptomatology inadolescence for females, but for males supportive early care appeared more relevant.