http://brighamyoungfamily.org/
It hit me like a ton of bricks while reading the book linked below. I am not sealed to Brigham Young. In the eyes of LDS Priesthood sealing I am the descendant of Joseph Smith Jr. with Brigham acting as "proxy" to get Smith "increase."

Young never considered the offspring of the women he "took" from Smith upon Smith's dead as his own. They were considered the offspring of Joseph Smith.

I wonder why this eluded me so long. All of this Brigham Young descendants gatherings and geting together crap shouldn't apply to my family. We should not be granted membership in their association because of their sealing rules in their own religion.

If sealing is SOOOOOO IMPORTANT to Mormons, why do they let the descendants of Brigham Young join their family association when in the "eternities" these people are supposed to be calling Smith their "spiritual" ancestor?

I guess DNA matters more in this case than it does in these people's religion. If their sealings mean anything, the wifes of Joseph Smith who had offspring with the men the married for time only should not have their children celebrating the time-only paternity.

http://www.amazon.com/Brigham-Expanding-American-Frontier-Biography/dp/0673393224/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306700884&sr=8-1
Who is Newell Bringhurst?
http://www.johnwhitmerbooks.com/books/details_SOS.asp
http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/UU_EAD&CISOPTR=412

or is it like DUPioneers?

who knows what LDS, Inc supports financially & otherwise?
(and what they Don't)

...who would want to join that doesn't believe?

I've never thought it was a cool thing to do - join this association. And finding out that according to stupid Mormon sealings makes me a descendant of Joseph Smith instead of Brigham Young is a glaring neon sign to me that Mormonism is total crap and their genealogical work, if for the purpose of sealing, is really a waste of time.

What is the point? Who am I really related to? Brigham Young but according to him, his daughter wasn't really his. What a great guy.

He's a pleasant older man I met a couple of years ago at a "history" event. He reminded me of some of my cousins--old time Jack Mormons who could laugh at themselves and the church. He is a historian and he churns out books and articles. I liked him, although he did call my ancestor a "second tier" leader. I'm just not in the high category of a Smith/Young/Taylor descendant. Oh well.

Come to think of it, I don't know who Bringhurst descends from--is he one of yours, Elder Berry?

Phantom Shadow Wrote:
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> Come to think of it, I don't know who Bringhurst
> descends from--is he one of yours, Elder Berry?

I am related to that scary totalitarian dictator of the Old West Young through Zina Diantha Huntington (Smith) Young.

Phantom Shadow Wrote:
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> He's a pleasant older man I met a couple of years
> ago at a "history" event. He reminded me of some
> of my cousins--old time Jack Mormons who could
> laugh at themselves and the church.

Explains his book a lot. It is not "Spurtal" and gives mundane reasons for things like Brigham joined Smith's cult because he saw it as an opportunity to have authority over other men.