For those of you who were born into a multigenerational Mormon family, how many generations are you removed from polygamy?

In my case, it’s only one. My maternal grandfather (AKA my mom’s dad) had 10 wives. Each wife lived in a separate house (no sister wife situations), and each household lived in poverty. All of the marriages were post-manifesto, but all were performed by church leaders. My grandfather’s first marriage was not in the temple, but one (possibly two) of his subsequent marriages were.

I never knew my polygamous grandfather (he died when I was an infant). I didn’t know about this part of my family’s history until I was an adult. I never asked my mom anything about her father because I assumed it would be a sensitive topic. I assume she couldn’t have had much of a relationship with her father (considering the fact that he split his time among 10 households) but I regret not asking my mom about it when she was alive.

I'd be interested knowing if my dad's Utah pioneer family was involved in polygamy. The family history book makes no mention of it. Family name is Burr. If anyone knows of polygamous goings on I'd love to hear about it. Burrville, east of Richfield was founded by my ancestor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2023 08:17PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

My great-great grandparents on both sides were polygamous. I don't know allot about them although there is allot of family history written about them.
Supposed I am descended from Brigham Young by his first wife.

born to the second wife.

My mother's grandfather had three wives in three different Mormon towns. He was not remembered fondly at least in my mother's family.
He traveled between the three families and stayed just long enough at each to make sure the wife was pregnant. Each wife had the responsibility of raising their own family and maintaining the household with all that entails.
According to my mother, her grandfather was "nothing but a lazy bum".

Zach he had a wife in every railroad town, and each town he passed through had a bed to lay him down ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0LwLBDzwM4

He had a farm in Trenton, Utah. He would take 2 of his wives to live in St. George and leave my great-grandmother behind to run the farm with her kids. Two of her children were deaf. If they had been born now, they could have been able to hear with hearing aids. My mother was born on the farm. Her mother was also deaf. He met my grandmother in the deaf school in Colorado Springs. he went back looking for her about 20 years later. His soon to be FIL made him promise that he wasn't a polygamist. Well, my grandfather wasn't.

My mother learned to sign before she talked. She learned to talk after they moved in with her grandmother/2nd wife of the grandfather. It is all rather interesting.

At least the polygamist father made sure my grandfather got the farm so he could support his family.

I didn't realize until I came to this board that there were polygamists in my mom's family until into the 1940s. When I was talking to her about it, I asked my dad if there were polygamists in his family and he said, "No. They weren't that stupid."

Interesting - can you say his last name? Understand if you don't want to. There is a history project going on for that area, I'll see if I can find the link from facebook posts.

is Funk. My grandfather sold the farm and moved to the Tremonton area and then he ended up in Deweyville. He died at age 62 or so when I was 3 and I'm 65 now.

Ah I'll ask my friends in Trenton if they know about him. I had a roommate at USU whose last name was Funk from Deweyville. As you probably know there are lots of Funks in the Dewyville/Honeyville area and Cache Valley too, all probably your second cousins. I knew another guy at USU from Amalga named Funk. My wife is very good at assigning where someone is from in Cache Valley by their last names, her mom could recite someone's geneology if you told her their last name and which town they were from, it's kind of weird .

are buried in the Trenton cemetery, as are the other 2 wives. My grandmother is Christina. My grandfather is buried in the Deweyville cemetery. I just went there Saturday.

My great grandparents.

But technically my father is sealed to both his departed wives.

3 GENERATIONS; MY GREAT GRANDPARENTS-

Grandparent. Sister.

Closer than I want to be.

PRETTY FAR!

I don't have 1...
Much less, 2-

My grandmother's grandfather married a 2nd wife.
On (family search dot org) on my family tree, she is listed as my 3rd great aunt.
That means they are considering her my grandmother's great aunt
That doesn't sound right. A great aunt would be the sister of her grandmother. A 2nd wife isn't a sister.
As a daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter, what would your accurate relationship be to the sister wife.

My great, great Grand Parents on all sides were polygamists except my father's father's side of the family were Jack-Mormons and didn't participate. Lots of pioneer Mormon royalty ancestors, but it didn't seem to take with me. My wife is very good at looking up ancestors, she discovered her Great Grandfather had two wives that her father and his brothers and sisters never knew existed.

That was interesting to think about

William Grant of American Fork, UT was my great-great grandfather. I know that he had 2 wives and perhaps 3.

Great grandpa h add 3 wives. My Mom said things like, we were from the “first” family. We were from the “legal” family. We were from the “legitimate” family.

He was gone on missions for years at a time. Other times he was away for months on church assignments.

This wasn’t a great system for women.

It was a terrible system for women--and hence also for children.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2023 07:59PM by Lot's Wife.

Interesting you should say that. Something I always found curious is that almost all of DH’s great great grandparents were polygamous (he has one grandfather who wasn’t Mormon). Out of all of DH’s gr gr grandmothers, they were all “first wives”. What are the chances of that?

My daughter’s 5th great grandfather on her dad’s side converted in Denmark, came to the USA, and pulled a handcart to Utah. He brought his wife and two young children. When his wife was in her forties, he began collecting more wives for a total of five.

Daughter came through wife number three. All the extended family was always so proud of him, revering his name. But no one seems to care what the wives names were despite the great extent of the genealogy records they’ve kept.

I’ve no polygamists as my parents joined when I was a baby. Now we’re all out.

TG

Five sets of my great-great-grandparents were polygamous.

GGF had 3 wives and 30 children. I wonder what child support would have been if he divorced them...

And yet Heavenly Father set it up so that male/female ratio is roughly 50/50.
I guess only the "very elect" get to mate up with a bunch of wives; and I wonder how many convert men walked across the Great Plains only to find that there were literally no women for them marry in Zion/Utah.

A great great uncle was a polygamous.