Just curious... is there any documentary evidence and DNA evidence that Joseph Smith had children with his polygamous wives??

I personally don't buy the modern LDS lie that Joseph Smith sealed women to himself in marriage, but had no sexual relationships with him. W.T.F. Pure nonsense.

Anybody have some good information on this. I would really be curious.

Given the current state-of-the-science on DNA testing, it's been impossible to rule out whether one or two of JS's plural wives who bore daughters were sired by him.

According to her daughter, Sylvia Sessions Lyon claimed on her deathbed that Joseph Smith was her father, but it hasn't been verified gentically.

I understand a number of male descendants of his plural wives have had their parentage verified by Y-Chromosome tests, and Smith was not their father.

Isn't there evidence to suggest that Smith impregnated some of his wives but arranged abortions for them?

I don't know, but would like to know any particular information about that.. if there is information on this.

Here's the best I've seen on the subject:
http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/DNA.htm

No DNA evidence to date.

(Oh, and also documentary evidence from his buddies telling about how Joseph was a "kiss and tell" sort of guy.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2013 06:47PM by Rebeckah.

I wouldn't trust anything of ugo perego. He hasn't allowed any peer review of his research as far as I can tell.

The whole DNA testing thing is problematic.

If the men involved are LDS or have LDS families, there would be pressure to claim the results were negative, whether or not they actually were. Even if the men themselves acknowledged positive test results, TSCC would have a vested interest in lying about them and pressuring the men to remain silent.

There's also the possibility that Woodward and Perego manipulated the test results. Perego received funding from the Sorenson Foundation, plus his church reputation was at stake. That makes his answers rather predictable.

Back in 2008, extensive research to determine the ancestry of Josephine Lyons looked "promising" -- they expected to obtain results in a year or so. The project fell into the proverbial black hole; no results were ever announced. Perego stopped work on it, obtained his PhD in 2010, and moved back to his native Italy to pursue an academic career: 9http://www.josephsmithdna.com/1/post/2012/03/ugo-perego-has-been-exiled.html

Why the silence? TSCC has been more than willing to publicize negative testing results (whether or not they are legitimate).

TBMs realize the importance of being able to claim an absence of proven JS/plural wife descendants; if kids existed, then it's proof JS had sex with at least some of his plural wives. That would destroy a lot of apologist defenses and make TSCC look bad (especially since they're now scuttling away from any ownership of polygamy).

Apparently, some things that are true are not very useful.

There's no proof that Joseph Smith had children with any of his wives.

But I don't think most mormons would care if he did anyway. They idealize that he was only truly with Emma, but at the same time, it's not a sin to have sex with someone you're married to. It's not going to cause any major drama in the church if it was revelaed Joseph had sex with his other wives.

However, if anyone could prove that Joseph Smith had sex with Fanny Alger BEFORE they got married (or any woman outside of marriage for that matter), then that would probably worry mormons a lot. But him having sex with a woman he's married to won't really shock anyone imo.

QWE writes:
<But I don't think most mormons would care if he did anyway...it's not a sin to have sex with someone you're married to.>

It could be shocking and problematic for several reasons:

1. Many young Mormons today aren't even aware that JS had plural wives. They react very strongly when they learn about it. Here's a good discussion from LDS author Joanna Brooks: http://askmormongirl.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/im-pretty-sure-mormons-still-believe-in-polygamy-am-i-wrong/

2. It's not the married-people-having-sex part that's the problem. It's the multiple, simultaneous sexual relationships that people can't seem to wrap their heads around, particularly in the case of polyandrous plural wives who had sex with their legal husbands and with JS concurrently.

Even some of JS's most loyal followers in Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo had problems with these "marriages" -- is it any wonder people today do?

3. Plural marriages and polyandry were never legal anywhere JS practiced them. Even FAIR admits his marriages were "an act of civil disobedience."
http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Polygamy

Children would be proof that he had sex with these women OUTSIDE of legal marriages. Technically, that's bigamy and adultery.

4. Many of the "marriages" don't even meet the religious definition of marriage as a valid LDS ordinance.

Some sealing ceremonies were done in haste and secrecy without even the proper number of witnesses. In some cases, there's no record of any ceremony, and in others, we have only anecdotal evidence from the diaries, letters, and journals of the women involved. If these were valid eternal marriages, why weren't they entered into official Church records?

In some cases, including Fanny Alger's, the women stopped cohabiting with Joseph and married other men, all without divorces or sealing cancellations -- more evidence that the arrangements were not considered valid marriages.

The existence of children, again, would prove that JS was having illicit sexual relations -- looks bad for a prophet of God.

4. There's still widespread disagreement on whether some of the women JS had relationships with were "wives" or not, and the number of wives fluctuates according to which source you read. Some of them are listed in private genealogies, but not in public sources like Wikipedia. New ones are still surfacing. It's an image problem: how many women did he have to bed before he satisfied the requirement to "restore" plural marriage?

5. Lots of Mormons, for whatever reason, find polygamy (especially with young underage brides) more acceptable if they can pretend there wasn't any sex. Case in point: Fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball. Apologists have long argued that plural marriages were "dynastic" in order to make the underage ones less objectionable. If it's proven JS fathered children with some plural wives, the dynastic marriage argument loses much plausibility.

Proven DNA descendancy would fling these issues squarely in the face of faithful believers who see Joseph Smith as a faithful, righteous, monogamous prophet who didn't sow his seed far and wide -- especially women believers, who know that in the CK, their husbands will be up to the same hijinks.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,801384,801384#msg-801384



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2013 05:31PM by steve benson.

"No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publically or privately, before my husbands death,that I have now, or ever had knowledge of"

( Emma Smith Feb 9, 1879, Church History Vol. 3, p.355. )


"Joseph Smith was the greatest victim of fraud and conspiracy of the last 500 years. Nothing like it in recorded history. He was simply lied about when something had to be done to justify ... Utah Mormon polygamy."

—RLDS President Israel A. Smith, grandson of Joseph the Martyr
(Letter to Pamela Price,September 17, 1956


"I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made one proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported that I had seven wives.... I am innocent of all these charges.... What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers."

—Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6:410–411



Brigham Young Admitted There Were Liars In the Church:

" I have many a time, in this stand, dared the
world to produce as mean devils as we can. We can
beat them at anything. We have the greatest and
smoothest liars in the world, the cunningest and most
adroit thieves and any other shade of character you
can mention. We can pick out Elders in Israel right
here who can beat the world at gambling; who can
handle the cards; can cut and shuffle them with the
smartest rogue on God’s foot stool. I can produce
Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers,
and take their money from them . We can beat the
world at any game."-

Deseret News,Vol.6,p. 291
(their church paper) and also Journal of Discourses,
Vol. 4.P. 77


Women who did not agree to plural marraige by proxy to Joseph Smith after Joseph's murder, were killed.


Pres. Heber C. Kimball stated pertaining Mormon women, July 19th. 1854:

"It is believed in the world that our females are all
common women. Well, in one sense they are common-
that is they are like all other women, I suppose,
but they are not unclean, for we wipe all unclean
ones from our midst; we not only wipe them from
our streets, but we wipe them out of existence. and if
the world wants to practice uncleanness, and bring
their prostitutes here, if they do not repent and forsake
such sins, we will wipe the evil out. We will not
have them in this valley unless they repent, for so
help me God, while I live I will lend my hand to
wipe such persons out, and I know this people will. "

- Deseret News, August 17th, 1854, and Millennial
Star, Vol. 16,pp. 738-9.



( A MONOGAMOUS WOMEN NEEDS TO REPENT???) If polygamy as stated by Utah LDS Church is of God, than a monogamous woman by same said logic would be considered unclean... Right?

Brigham Young Confesses Polygamy Was Not Part of Original Church Teaching Brigham Young, being interviewed by United States Senator Trumbull, in 1869, said:

"As to our institution, we know we are right, and
polygamy which you object to, was not originally a
part of our system, but was adopted by us as a necessity,
after we came here." Alta California.


The Utah LDS Church Confirm Polygamy Never Was Part of Original Faith:


"The Mormon church existed for many years without
polygamy. Indeed, correctly speaking, polygamy is
not now and never has been even a tenet of the
Mormon faith."

- Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1881 or
Dec. 7, 1882.

U.S. Courts Agree Polygamy Was A Post Joseph Smith Utah LDS Church Invention.

February 23, 1880, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by its attorneys, appeared before the Court of Common Pleas, Lake County, Ohio, (see journal entry, February term, 1880) as plaintiff, asking for possession of the Kirtland Temple, an edifice erected during the early days of the church, and prior to the death of Joseph Smith the Martyr. The church in Utah, then presided over by John Taylor, was named with others as defendants.
Judge L. S. Sherman rendered the following decision:


"That the said Plaintiff, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a Religious Society, founded and organized upon the same doctrines and tenets, and having the same church organization, as the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, organized in 1830, by Joseph Smith, and was organized pursuant to the constitution, laws and usages of said original Church, and has branches located in Illinois, Ohio, and other States.



That the church in Utah, the Defendant of which John Taylor is president, has materially and largely departed from the faith, doctrines, laws, ordinances and usages of said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and has incorporated into its system of faith the doctrines of celestial marriage and a plurality of wives, and the doctrine of Adam-god worship, contrary to the laws and constitution of said original Church.

And the Court do further find that the Plaintiff, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is the True and Lawful continuation of, and successor to the said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, organized in 1830, and is entitled in law to all its rights and property."

In a case tried before Judge John F. Philips, in the Circuit Court of the United States, for the Western District of Missouri, Western Division, at Kansas City, Missouri.

In his decision, rendered March 16, 1894, Judge Philips said:

The Book of Mormon itself inveighed against the sin of polygamy.... Conformably to the Book of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants expressly declared "that we believe that one man should have but one wife, and one woman but one husband." And this declaration of the church on this subject reappeared in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, editions of 1846 and 1856. Its first appearance as a dogma of the church (the dogma of polygamy) was in the Utah Church in 1852.


Claim is made by the Utah Church that this doctrine is predicated of a revelation made to Joseph Smith in July, 1843. No such revelation was ever made public during the life of Joseph Smith, and under the law of the church it could not become an article of faith and belief until submitted to and adopted by the church. This was never done ....

(History of RLDS Church Vol 5 pp. 238-239)


The Church Split Before Joseph Smith's Death:

In a reply to Henry Clay, May 13, 1844,
Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, p. 574, Joseph
Smith, Jr. states:

“Why Great God! to transport 200,000 people
through a vast prairie: over the Rocky Mountains,
to Oregon, a distance of nearly two
thousand miles, would cost more than four
millions!” (emphasis added)


People do the math...Don't get snookered one way or the other. All is not what it seems.

What I find interesting is the Deseret News Published Against LDS Section 132 by publishing DNA evidences that Joseph did not father certain children.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700150651/DNA-solves-a-Joseph-Smith-mystery.html?pg=all

In a nutshell, an LDS Church News Paper confirmed cirtan children were not Joseph Smith's, even though they had been told all their lives, that they were.

Quite a lie don't you think?

Are you a Waterman fan or an RLDS/COC apologist? Dude, haven't most of the COC acceptd that JSJr was a polygamist these days?

You need to do more research on Kirtland and Nauvoo era reports of Joseph's philandering.

Try George Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy for some leads.

It takes some major disregard of primary sources to think that Joseph's polygamy was a Brighamite conspiracy.

The purpose of apologists in trying to prove that JS fathered no children by his polygamous wives can only be to imply that those relationships were "platonic" and involved no sexual intercourse. Otherwise, what difference does it make?

But by admitting that Smith did actually marry them, Mormon apologists must face the fact that in the Book of Mormon (Jacob 2) God says that if he commands polygamy, the purpose will be to "raise up seed."

You can't produce seed without sexual intercourse.

So if Smith wasn't having sex with those women, he was in violation of God's purpose in commanding polygamy.