Children of Joseph Smith

This article is part of a series on Joseph Smith 1805 to 1827 – 1827 to 1830 1831 to 1834 – 1834 to 1837 1838 to 1839 – 1839 to 1844 Death – Polygamy – Teachings Prophecies – Criticism Bibliography – Chronology v · d · e

The children of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his wife Emma Smith, are historically significant because of their roles in establishing and leading the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now called Community of Christ). The RLDS believed that leadership of the church would flow through Smith's descendants, and in 1860, Joseph Smith III became its prophet and president.

Joseph Smith, Jr. publicly condemned polygamy,^[1][2][3][4] but there is ample evidence that Smith both taught and practiced it, had a number of wives sealed to him, and may have had sexual relations with at least some of them.^[5] Though there were allegations of paternity in some of these polygamous marriages, no children have ever been proven to be Smith's. There is ongoing genetic research to determine if any descendants of alleged children have Smith's genetic markers, and so far all tests have been negative.^[6][7][8]

Children born to Emma Hale Smith

	Child	Lifespan	Notes
	Alvin Smith	June 15, 1828 – June 15, 1828
	Thaddeus Smith	April 30, 1831 – April 30, 1831	Twin of Louisa, premature
	Louisa Smith	April 30, 1831 – April 30, 1831	Twin of Thaddeus, premature
	Joseph Smith Murdock*	April 30, 1831 – March 29, 1832	*Adopted. Twin of Julia, birth son of Julia Clapp Murdock and John Murdock who upon his wife's death in childbirth gave the infants to the Smiths for adoption
	Julia Murdock Smith*	April 30, 1831 – September 12, 1880	*Adopted. Twin of Joseph, birth son of Julia Clapp Murdock and John Murdock
	Joseph Smith III	November 6, 1832 – December 10, 1914	Prophet-President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), opponent of polygamy
	Frederick Granger Williams Smith	June 29, 1836 – April 13, 1862	Frederick died two months short of his twenty-fourth birthday leaving only a daughter who never married and had no children.[9]
	Alexander Hale Smith	June 2, 1838 – August 12, 1909	Senior leader of the RLDS Church, opponent of polygamy
	Don Carlos Smith	June 13, 1840 - August 15, 1841	Died at 14 months
	Male child	Dec 26, 1842 - Dec 26, 1842	Stillborn
	David Hyrum Smith	November 17, 1844 – August 29, 1904	born after Smith's death, active in the RLDS Church, opponent of polygamy

Allegations of children born to alleged polygamous wives

No children of Smith's alleged polygamous relationships has been shown, to a scholarly consensus, to have been Smith's genetic offspring. The following table lists some of the children born to Smith's alleged polygamous wives as well as those ruled out by genetic testing:^[6][7][8]

Child	Date of birth	Mother	Father	DNA testing status	DNA testing result	Notes
Oliver Buell	1838 – 39	Presendia Huntington Buell	Norman Buell	Complete (November 2007)	Negative[8]	Historian Fawn Brodie speculated that Buell was a polygamous son of Joseph Smith.[10]
John Reed Hancock	April 19, 1841	Clarissa Reed Hancock	Levi Hancock	Complete (July 2011)	Negative [11]	Only anecdotal evidence that Clarissa Reed Hancock was a plural wife of Joseph Smith.[6][12]
Mosiah Hancock	April 9, 1834	Clarissa Reed Hancock	Levi Hancock	Complete (November 2007)	Negative[8]	Only anecdotal evidence that Clarissa Reed Hancock was a plural wife of Joseph Smith.[6][12]
Frank Henry Hyde	January 23, 1845, 1846?	Marinda Johnson Hyde	Orson Hyde	Incomplete	?
Orson Washington Hyde	November 9, 1843	Marinda Johnson Hyde	Orson Hyde	Not possible (died in infancy)	n/a
Zebulon Jacobs	January 2, 1842	Zina Huntington Jacobs	Henry Jacobs	Complete (May 2005)	Negative[7]
Algernon Lightner	March 22, 1842	Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner	Adam Lightner	Not possible (died in infancy)	n/a
Josephine Rosetta Lyon	February 8, 1844	Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon	Windsor Lyon	Incomplete	?	Mother told her on deathbed that Josephine was Smith's daughter.[13]
Moroni Pratt	December 7, 1844	Mary Ann Frost Pratt	Parley P. Pratt	Complete (May 2005)	Negative[7]

See also

• Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy
• Wives of Joseph Smith, Jr.
• Community of Christ

Notes

1. ^ Whitmer 1887
2. ^ Times and Seasons, Volume 5, page 474
3. ^ Times and Seasons, Volume 5, page 423
4. ^ The Latter-Day Saints' Millennial Star 4 [January 1844]: 144
5. ^ Bushman, 492-93: "They had to give up romance, cut themselves off from friends, perhaps suffer disgrace if they became pregnant." Ostling, 65: "The number of Smith's polygamous offspring is a bit of a mystery. There was only one child from a plural marriage generally acknowledged as such: Josephine, daughter of Emily Dow Partridge. Several sources indicate there were others, raised in other families and under other names. Such children had, of course, been conceived in secrecy." Arrington & Bitton, 199: "Several women later did testify that they were wives in the full sense of the word. Emily D. P. Partidge said she 'roomed' with him, and Melissa Lott Willes testified that she was his wife 'in very deed.'
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Perego, Myers & Woodward 2005
7. ^ ^{a b c d} "Research focuses on Smith family". Deseret News. 2005-05-28. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600137517,00.html. 
8. ^ ^{a b c d} "DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants: Scientific advances prove no genetic link". Deseret News. 2007-11-10. http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695226318,00.html. 
9. ^ Jones, Gracia (December 11, 2009). "Children of Joseph and Emma: Frederick Granger Williams Smith". The Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Historical Society. http://www.josephsmithjr.org/history/children. Retrieved October 3, 2011. 
10. ^ Moore, C. DNA tests rules out 2 as Smith descendants, Mormon Times, November 12, 2007
11. ^ De Groote, Michael (9 July 2011). "D NA solves a Joseph Smith Mystery". Deseret News. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700150651/DNA-solves-a-Joseph-Smith-mystery.html. Retrieved 13 July 2011. 
12. ^ ^{a b} Wife not recognized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as shown in Joseph Smith's genealogical record at the LDS church's website FamilySearch ( FamilySearch, http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/individual_record.asp?recid=7762167, retrieved 2008-07-01 ),^{[unreliable source?]} nor recognized by Compton 1997, Smith 1994, pp. 13–15, or Brodie 1971.
13. ^ "Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside … to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith." (Newell & Avery 1994, pp. 44, Compton 1997, pp. 183) Testing requires autosomal DNA.

References

• Brodie, Fawn (1971), No Man Knows My History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0679730540 .
• Compton, Todd (1997), In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City: Signature Books, ISBN 156085085X .
• Krakauer, Jon (2003), Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, New York: Doubleday, pp. 90 .
• Newell, Linda King; Avery, Valeen Tippetts (1994), Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (2d ed.), University of Illinois Press, pp. 89, 132, ISBN 9780252062919, ISBN 0252062914, http://books.google.com/?id=UjHEhhqVu1UC&pg=PA139&vq=Lucy+Walker&dq=Mormon+Enigma:+Emma+Hale+smith .
• Perego, Ugo A.; Myers, Natalie M.; Woodward, Scott R. (Summer 2005), "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith, Jr.: Genealogical Applications" (PDF), Journal of Mormon History 32 (2), http://mha.wservers.com/pubs/TOC/05_July_Journal_TOC.pdf .
• Quinn, D. Michael (1994), The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Salt Lake City: Signature Books .
• Smith, Andrew F. (1971), The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, p. 141, ISBN 9780252022821, http://books.google.com/?id=BWM7yHuIyAUC&pg=PA113&vq=abortion&dq=The+Saintly+Scoundrel:+The+Life+and+Times+of+Dr.+John+Cook+Bennett .
• Van Wagoner, Richard S. (Summer 1986), "Sarah Pratt: The Shaping of an Apostate", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (2): 69–99, http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/dialogue,19427 .
• Whitmer, David (1887), An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Missouri, http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/address3.htm, retrieved 2006-12-30 .
• Wymetal, Wilhelm Ritter von (1886), Joseph Smith, the Prophet, His Family, and His Friends: A Study Based on Facts and Documents, Salt Lake City, UT: Tribune Printing and Publishing Company, pp. 60–61, http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1886WWyl.htm#pg061a .