Mormon Cred - Polygamist Style

[Korihor]

Let's play a game. Let's see who has the most Mormon cred by counting how many polygamist forefathers they have.
Rules:
1) We're only counting male polygamist forefathers. Not to diminish the women at all, it's simply very difficult to keep track of everything.
2) The marriages must be concurrent. Remarriage after death of first spouse doesn't count.
3) It only counts if you have reasonable assurance it was a polygamist marriage. I couple of mine were questionable, but it could have been submitter error so I didn't count it
4) It must be a polygamist marriage related to the Mormon movement and all associated break-offs sects are counted. I.e. Some random polygamist deal from the middle east doesn't count.

Alright, I'll start.

I have 13 polygamist forefathers in my family tree. (2 looked plausible, but I didn't have good documentation so I didn't count them)

1 guy married two women (#3 & #4), noticeably younger than he, on the same day.

1 guy is rather prominent, Benjamin James Mitchell. He worked directly with JS and BY (those two scoundrels took a lot of money from him). He even claimed to speak directly with Moroni on one occasion. He had 7 wives and 48 children.

Several of my foremothers were sealed to more than one husband. Not sure how that works

1 guy seems to have converted but remained in Europe and kept the "practice" over there. Peculiar.

Almost all of my family tree on both sides is mormon all the way back to the early 1800's. They either were already in America and converted or in Europe (mostly England) and converted and immigrated.

All 8 of my G Grandparents were lifelong active LDS.

10 of my 16 GG grandparents did their own endowment. The other 6 had it done by proxy after their death. All were baptized Mormon age 8+
All of my 16 GG Grandparents lived and died in Northern Utah or Southern Idaho.

Of my 32 GGG Grandparents, 30 of them were for sure mormon. The other 2 probably were but i'm lacking conclusive documentation.

I have several GGGG Grandparents that were mormon. Of my GGGG Grandparents that were not Mormon, most of these died before mormonism was invented or were rather old when mormonism was invented.

My GGGG Grandfather was William Dawson. He converted and was baptized at age 54. His son converted and was baptized as young adult about the same time as his father. Every male Dawson in my lineage was baptized since then at age 8. My son will be the first to break that tradition after 6 generations.

[deacon blues]

My great grandfather married his last polygamous wife (Not my great-grandmother)in 1910 and moved to Canada, twenty years after the manifesto. My other polygamist great great grandfather (Thomas E. Ricks) met my great great grandmother (Tamar Loader) when he helped bring her in with the rest of the Willie Handcart company in November of 1856.

[wtfluff]

I have 13 polygamist forefathers in my family tree. (2 looked plausible, but I didn't have good documentation so I didn't count them)

I think you've already won as far as your "Cred Scale" is concerned.

I have the one polygamist G-G-Grandfather that I know of, and I'm not going to do any further research. Far from being "fun" or "enjoyable", finding this crap out just makes me angry, and a bit ill, all at the same time...

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Northern Utah/Southern Idaho was quite the polygamist stronghold in the early Utah territory days. Cache valley and the bear lake area especially. I have polygamy roots there too.

[Red Ryder]

We might find out we're all cousins in the shallow end of the Mormon gene pool.

[alas]

That isn't how to measure Mormon cred. Who gets up in sacrament meeting and says I want to tell you the story of my great great g g g g great grandfather who had 18 wives? Nope, Mormon cred is built around pioneers who froze at Martin's cove. It is more like my Gx7 grandfather was a close friend of Joseph Smith and he recorded the following in his journal, or my gx7 grandmother who was in the Willie handcart company. Nobody brags about their polygamous ancestors, but you hear all kinds of brags about the pioneers.

Besides, I am going to cry generational unfair, either that or count the polygamist ancestors of my 40 year old children, because they are the same generation as most of y'all. Seeing as I am one generation older than most of you with the 18 polygamists, I have far fewer possibilities to count. I am only 3 generations from some of those polygamists, so the further a person is removed, the number of possible polygamists doubles each generation. And besides that, I am a child of a youngest child of the youngest child of the youngest child of the youngest child of the youngest child....no, I am serious, my cousins and I come through a line where we come from a youngest child of a polygamist who was around 60 at the time of conception, who was the youngest child of a polygamist who was around 60 at the time of conception. That seriously messes up the generational count. So, I think we should go with percentage of ancestors who were possible polygamists who were, compared to percentage of those married monogamously.

So, heck if we are counting Mormon cred, let's give points for Mormon Royality or those frequently mentioned in church history in the line, plus pioneers in the handcart companies, plus ancestors in the Mormon Batalion, plus just for fun ancestors who died crossing the plains, and five points each for a wife of Joseph Smith,only two points for a sibling of a wife of JS. Bonus points for an ancestor being in the last three hand cart companies who got snowed in. Last three handcart companies, Three, not just Martin and Willie, but the one that was only a week ahead of Willie, which was Edmund or something like that. That one gets neglected, but they were rescued just like the other two. They were not as bad off, cause that week made a big difference, but they still had more deaths than all the previous handcart companies combined, ran out of food, and walked through snow.

That way the count is not quite as nauseating because I have some ugly polygamy stories that I don't want to go look at. I know that some 80% of those who could practice polygamy did in my ancestry. 2 royalty, 3 handcarts, 2 with bonus points. 6 total points for the wives or sibs of wife of JS, and I don't know about Mormon Batalion, and 2deaths crossing the plains.

That feels better than OMG, I have 13 polygamists and my DH has 10. Ewwww.

Unless you were going for the Ick factor, then you should give bonus points for under age 15 brides and sisters or mother daughter combinations. I am SOOO not going to look for those.

[Enoch Witty]

I'm a g-g-g-grandson of Erastus Snow and his sixth (depending on which account) wife. There are a couple other polygamists in my tree. Their stories make me really sad.

What I'm most interested in is this guy:

https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/reco ... n_41371558

This is also my g-g-g-grandfather. Here's a guy who was born in Nauvoo, presumably crossed the plains for Utah as a child, has a polygamous father, and went on to have ten kids, all born in first Utah and then Idaho. My grandma says that he was at one time a personal guard for Brigham Young. And yet, according to Ancestry.com, he was NOT A POLYGAMIST.

In my head, I've constructed an epic narrative where my g-g-g-grandpa heroically said, "No, I will not do this horrible thing to my wife and (many, many) children! I will be a Mormon, but a polygamist I will never be! GET BEHIND ME, BROTHER BRIGHAM!" And he was just such a badass that Brigham couldn't do a damn thing about it.

...in reality, he probably got on Brigham's bad side and not having additional wives was a "punishment." Who knows? I like the hero-standing-up-to-the-tyrant narrative way better.

[Korihor]

Besides, I am going to cry generational unfair, either that or count the polygamist ancestors of my 40 year old children, because they are the same generation as most of y'all. Seeing as I am one generation older than most of you with the 18 polygamists, I have far fewer possibilities to count.

It's not my fault you weren't part of the chosen generation. God must not love you as much.

[wtfluff]

Nope, Mormon cred is built around pioneers who froze at Martin's cove.

Aw... You HAD to bring that up too? Again, another reason NOT to be "proud" of my ancestors...

We might find out we're all cousins in the shallow end of the Mormon gene pool.

Um... Don't spend any time doing any research if you if you really don't want to know the answer to your "question", Cousin Ryder.

[Linked]

I'm a g-g-g-grandson of Erastus Snow and his sixth (depending on which account) wife.

Hey, me too!!! Go Snows! I'm from his first wife though.

First to find a cousin. Do Enoch and I get extra points?

[shadow]

Aaron Johnson is my 3G-grandpa. He was on the Nauvoo high council and appears to have been quite willing to accept the polygamy revelation. I really wish he had taken up with William Law. Instead, also being on the Nauvoo city council, he participated in the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor.

He certainly embraced polygamy when he got the chance. He had 10 wives. There were more than one that were teenagers when he married them. The youngest might have been some months shy of 15. He had 57 children. So, the odds are probably better than not that one of your are my cousin.

My favorite </sarcasm> story is one that made it into the NYTimes in 1859. https://nyti.ms/2uienD2 He was implicated in the murder of some apostates that were trying to leave the church.

What really makes me mad is where this guy came from. He descended from the Weld family, one of the Boston Brahmin families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin. There's even a residence hall at Harvard named after our common philanthropist ancestor, Captain Joseph Weld. Bill Weld, the former Massachusetts governor and last year's libertarian VP candidate, is a distant, distant cousin.

But I come from the mormon polygamist side of the family.

Awesome.

[MerrieMiss]

Very little cred here. Maybe this is why I never felt like I really belonged - it just wasn't in my blood.

It appears most of my Mormon ancestors were converts from the British Isles who remained very poor after they came to Utah and Arizona. I wonder what they thought when they finally arrived. I have a ancestors from the early days in New York and Ohio, but I don't know much about them.

Anson Call is the only polygamist I know that I am related to.

[Korihor]

I'm gonna give Mrs Misbehaved a little credit.
I logged in to family search with her ID and I tracked 1 line all the way back to 100 B.C.

Wowzers!

I gotta admit, I start to question accuracy prior to 1600. A.D. But sure enough, one line tracks all the was back before Jesus.

[Korihor]

I'm gonna give Mrs Misbehaved a little credit.
I logged in to family search with her ID and I tracked 1 line all the way back to 100 B.C.

Wowzers!

I gotta admit, I start to question accuracy prior to 1600. A.D. But sure enough, one line tracks all the was back before Jesus.

HA! I beat Mrs Misbehaved. I tracked one of my lines to 600 B.C. My mormon cred beats hers.
It gets really messy with anything that is B.C. It's all kings/queens/dukes/etc.

[Corsair]

Let's play a game. Let's see who has the most Mormon cred by counting how many polygamist forefathers they have.

You have me beat since I only have two or three polygamist ancestors. I'm kind of proud of the ones that are known to have politely, but firmly, told Brigham Young that they would not be participating in the "blessings" of plural marriage.

We might find out we're all cousins in the shallow end of the Mormon gene pool.

And by "shallow end of the Mormon gene pool" we mean "not in modern LDS leadership". The cousin connections among the apostles are quite extensive and were started back with Smith, Young, Snow, Kimball, and other prominent early families.

[HighMaintenance]

I'm still discovering them!

[Red Ryder]

I'm gonna give Mrs Misbehaved a little credit.
I logged in to family search with her ID and I tracked 1 line all the way back to 100 B.C.

Wowzers!

I gotta admit, I start to question accuracy prior to 1600. A.D. But sure enough, one line tracks all the was back before Jesus.

HA! I beat Mrs Misbehaved. I tracked one of my lines to 600 B.C. My mormon cred beats hers.
It gets really messy with anything that is B.C. It's all kings/queens/dukes/etc.

Don't forget Lamanites and Nephites!

Hey wait a minute? Shouldn't there be geneology that goes back to BOM times? Someone's got to have a line that goes back to King Lamoni.

[hmb]

Oh y'all think you're so smart. In MY family, a grandparent's patriarchal blessing said that we are direct descendants of Jesus Christ. So there! Neener. I win (except I only know of polygamy in one set of g-grandparents. There were only 3 total wives. That's pretty weak, so that will knock me down a few. So embarrassing.

[Corsair]

Don't forget Lamanites and Nephites!

Hey wait a minute? Shouldn't there be geneology that goes back to BOM times? Someone's got to have a line that goes back to King Lamoni.

My sister married a Navajo/Hopi guy who would absolutely be considered a success story of the promises of the Book of Mormon. He is a returned missionary and now has had a temple marriage to my sister for nearly three decades. This includes four faithful children, two missionary children, and two children married in the temple in the past year. The first faithful grandchildren will be arriving later this year. This brother-in-law is in a bishopric right now. His mother went to college with George P. Lee (OK, this is not as impressive as it used to be). Spencer Kimball would have approved of this clear success story based on LDS criteria. His Mormon cred is based on his blessings as a descendant of Lehi. It would be the crowning discovery of his life to find any evidence (however spurious) that he was connected with the people of Lamoni.

So recently I was talking to him and he was pointing out his pride in his Lamanite heritage. I don't want to take that away from him, but I did point out that the genetic origins of Navajo and Hopi tribes is well documented as Asiatic, not from the Middle East. He looked at me with some confusion and I felt inspired to not continue that conversation.

Part of my concern was that the LDS church has been a really good influence on him and his family. He is a Book of Mormon literalist (ie., a faithful Mormon) and a BYU football fan (ie., a faithful Mormon). His righteous pride in his Lamanite cred is comparable to the polygamy cred felt by other faithful Mormons.

[Emower]

Oh y'all think you're so smart. In MY family, a grandparent's patriarchal blessing said that we are direct descendants of Jesus Christ. So there! Neener. I win (except I only know of polygamy in one set of g-grandparents. There were only 3 total wives. That's pretty weak, so that will knock me down a few. So embarrassing.

Wow, that patriarch was fairly far out in the weeds even in your grandparents age! Is it/was it generally assumed Jesus was married and had kids? I know according to Jewish law he would have had to have been, but since when did Jesus really toe the line outside of being baptized? He was a little bit of a rule breaker in my book.