The book, "In Sacred Loneliness" by Todd Compton is a very good resource for information about Joseph Smith's affairs, marriages, and "spiritual wifery" as he referred to those women who weren't legally married to him under the laws of our land.
Sylvia Sessions (Lyon) is discussed in the book. It says in the book that she was married to Joseph Smith 8 Feb 1842 when she was 23. You might find it interesting to read this book.
That is very interesting that you are related to JS.
Thanks for your comments! I'll take your recommendations into consideration and add them to my goodreads 'to read' bookshelf.
I also found it interesting (and much more personal) to learn my relationship to Joseph Smith. When I was growing up, I was knew a fellow my age named Joseph Smith. The dad's name was Hyrum Smith, and the son's name was Joseph Smith. Hyrum started a very popular company called Franklin, that did the day planners and later merged with Covey to become Franklin-Covey. He later had some rather public marriage scandals too.
Anyways, I would visit his home for parties once in a while, and I wondered what it would be like to be a direct relation to Joseph Smith. What kind of influence would it have on your life to have it be that personal. Would your testimony be better for it?
And now that I found out that I'm related, I have mixed emotions. I wouldn't be here, were it not for his philanderings with plural spiritual wives, so I'm grateful. But I wouldn't be in this emotional and spiritual mess if it weren't for Joseph's life too. So it angers me. In the words of that famous Disney fish Martin from 'Finding Nemo', "It's a complicated emotion."
May 6, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Anonymous said...
I know this is a really old thread, but I just stumbled across it. From what I've read so far you are very interested in the truth (and I assume are therefore interested in being corrected for the truth's sake).
While I believe that Joseph Smith f*ck*d around, my professional genealogist wife claims that for most of the lifetime of familysearch anybody could add records and neither the church nor any professional genealogist validated the records. What this means to me is that I won't use these records to prove (or disprove) any truth.
That's a good idea, if it were that simple, I would do exactly that. I mean, there is no question that I'm descended from Josephine Rosetta Lyons and Sylvia Sessions, the question is just whether or not Sylvia is telling the truth of her daughter Josephine. Apparently, it is difficult to determine parenthood using DNA in this situation. I.e. as strange as it may seem, the technology doesn't exist, it needs to be developed, which would cost much more money than I have, or would even be interested in spending. See my link in this article about the ongoing investigation for more info concerning that.
Well this means we are cousins as My ggg grandparents were John Fisher and Josephine.
One thing I just wanted to pose to you as I have done extensive reading on this point is Sylvia was dying and said that Josephine was Joseph's daughter. She may have been speaking in the sence of Biology or that they were sealed together and the eternities are theirs.
DNA testing has been done for all the boys who were questionable and none have strong enough DNA markers to prove the parentage. Josephine is the last big question and the Sorenson foundation is doing that testing and say it will be done as soon as they can.
I know Joseph Smith was a prophet although I want understanding as to the situation but I never can doubt a testimony that has been developed between my Heavenly Father and myself. I know that their are gruesome things that the Lord as asked his people to do that seem unreal to us. Hello...Abraham was to kill his precious boy...
Thanks for your comments Sister B. I am aware of the DNA testing going on concerning this, its interesting stuff. Even I posted a comment on this article concerning some of it.
What I'm a little confused about though is your statement: "I never can doubt a testimony that has been developed between my Heavenly Father and myself."
This indicates absolute certainty in your testimony, which I would think could only be attained through actually meeting the deity. According to Alma 32, we all have varying levels of faith, which conversly implies various levels of doubt, which is also perfectly OK both to the church, and should be OK with you personally too.
Just consider for a moment how many people of all different faiths claim levels of certainty on par with your own. Now ask, can all of us be right?
I think that a healthier (and even accepted in the church) approach would be to allow some questioning and pondering, both in your heart and in your mind.
Truth does not & should not fear careful scrutiny, skepticism and rigorous verification.
Truth that claims its veracity without scrutiny is no more than...well... its no more than an ideology. Which is OK. We all have our own 'developing' ideologies with personal truth. That's different though.
I guess I'm talking more about historicity. It seems pretty obvious that Joseph Smith didn't really have gold plates, and didn't really use them to write the book of Mormon. Even the RLDS church which asserted for so many years the 'historicity' of the plates has finally at least said that they didn't exist. This, the church founded by Joseph Smith's own family and actual witnesses to seeing the golden plates.
I assumed that everyone has those times when something happens and you are confronted with the reality of the truth according to you and your Heavenly Father. Just because of my religion that doesn't discount any one of another faith's experiences. As for myself, Joshep Smith as a Prophet leaves me with out questions in that area.
I question and ponder how to become a better person and how to best represent people of my faith in the mission field. How can I raise children to have a testimony and a knowledge of the things of a spiritual nature if I don't have one myself?
Well, hello Cuz! I love reading back through this article. Sister B and I had some really interesting discussions I think. I love Alma 32. I love that it allows severe doubt in the church, and yet would still allow you to be in the church, all you want to be.
What I find disheartening is how Sister B declined to use it. In fact, I find that most LDS folks feel it would be going against their god, or doing disservice to their children to take advantage of this offering from their god.
Really, by not exploring the usage of Alma 32, they are poorly preparing themselves and their children for real, strong testimonies. The only testimony that can be reached without thorough scrutiny, sincere questioning and solid reasoning is a straw testimony built on a feeling.
A person can often assert that this is enough, while it actually isn't. The only reason they say it is enough is because they have been told so many times that it was that they now believe it.
The logic is circularly proved. The church is true because it says so. Such logic wouldn't stand in any court, and if I made a claim such as that in say the field of medicine, I would be dismissed out of hand.
It's really really important to be careful when we try to assign children to Joseph Smith. There are big problems with most of the reasons you gave in your article. You may still be descended from him, but here are the huge problems:
*The church's software indicates that he is Josephine's father.
>I work with this software as a volunteer in a Family History Center, and it's not the software that indicates this, it's the information entered into it by the general public. And often, very often, that information is wrong. A member of the general public entered my great-grandmother in it as a man, and so she's been given the priesthood! I called the Temple Department in Salt Lake City about this and they said they are accepting all mistakes, for the time being, because partial errors might contain a germ of truth and now is not the time to be combing that stuff out.
*In an online article Josephine claims to have had a death bed conversation with her mother Sylvia Porter Sessions in which her mother told her that she was indeed Joseph's child.
>Online articles are very tricky because there's much less accountablity for honesty than for a print publication. For example, Wordpress doesn't get a bad name if I publish sloppy research, but Time Magazine would.
*Josephine's name takes root in Joseph's name itself.
>It does, but Joseph and Josephine were very common names in that era. MUCH more common than today.
It's really really important to be careful when we try to assign children to Joseph Smith. There are big problems with most of the reasons you gave in your article. You may still be descended from him, but here are the huge problems:
*The church's software indicates that he is Josephine's father.
>I work with this software as a volunteer in a Family History Center, and it's not the software that indicates this, it's the information entered into it by the general public. And often, very often, that information is wrong. A member of the general public entered my great-grandmother in it as a man, and so she's been given the priesthood! I called the Temple Department in Salt Lake City about this and they said they are accepting all mistakes, for the time being, because partial errors might contain a germ of truth and now is not the time to be combing that stuff out.
*In an online article Josephine claims to have had a death bed conversation with her mother Sylvia Porter Sessions in which her mother told her that she was indeed Joseph's child.
>Online articles are very tricky because there's much less accountablity for honesty than for a print publication. For example, Wordpress doesn't get a bad name if I publish sloppy research, but Time Magazine would.
*Josephine's name takes root in Joseph's name itself.
>It does, but Joseph and Josephine were very common names in that era. MUCH more common than today.
The science has come a long way since this original post. I am the founder of Mormongenomeproject.com which seeks to answer this very question. We are in the process of testing now. If you are interested please contact me!
Well, according to this post: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865656112/Joseph-Smith-apparently-was-not-Josephine-Lyons-father-Mormon-History-Association-speaker-says.html?pg=all
So, what are your thoughts and feelings about Joseph now?
Glenn
June 27, 2016 at 9:07 PM
I've been working in the family history center during church. The church produced a new program called new.familysearch.org. This program allows church members to research and straighten up their family history by removing duplicates. My first day doing this, I decided just to go back on my lines to see where I came from. As I researched my father's line, it went back a few generations to a woman named Josephine Rosetta Lyon.
The church's software displayed her parents: Joseph Smith Jr. and Sylvia Porter Sessions.
I looked and couldn't believe what I saw. I researched it even more and found that it was indeed, Joseph Smith, the prophet of the LDS faith. Sylvia was one of Joseph's other wives. I researched it even a little bit further using the church's software to find that at the time that Josephine was born, Sylvia was married to two men; Joseph Smith & Windsor Palmer Lyon. See the timeline here:
There is no record of a divorce. This indicates that Joseph and Sylvia were married at the same time she was married to Windsor and that they had the child Josephine.
There is some doubt between interested parties and experts as to whether Josephine is really Joseph Smith's daughter or not, but the following points seems to indicate it is true: The church's software indicates that he is Josephine's father.In an online article Josephine claims to have had a death bed conversation with her mother Sylvia Porter Sessions in which her mother told her that she was indeed Joseph's child.Josephine's name takes root in Joseph's name itself.Ongoing DNA testing as published in the Deseret News has yet to prove or disprove Josephine's claims.My Feelings.It is my feeling that Joseph either was a prophet and did indeed fall in his later years, or that he thought himself a prophet, but his own inconsistencies became too complicated for him to maintain as his many doctrines began to conflict with each other. Or perhaps, he really did believe that God told him that having multiple wives and sexual relationships with these wives was commanded of God. Even if these women were already married at the time.Either way, I don't believe that if there is a God that he would command his prophet to take wives from existing marriage relationships while he was still very espoused to Emma.This type of behaviour would inevitably breed resentment & jealousy between any normal women and create personal heartache and possibly depression in their hearts. I refuse to believe that any God of love would favor a man's carnal desires over a woman's tender heart.I have to think about Fanny Alger on this as well. So many women in Joseph's life having intimate relationships. That can not be what any God had in mind.
"Joseph's Secret Daughter"
17 Comments -
The book, "In Sacred Loneliness" by Todd Compton is a very good resource for information about Joseph Smith's affairs, marriages, and "spiritual wifery" as he referred to those women who weren't legally married to him under the laws of our land.
Sylvia Sessions (Lyon) is discussed in the book. It says in the book that she was married to Joseph Smith 8 Feb 1842 when she was 23. You might find it interesting to read this book.
That is very interesting that you are related to JS.
May 3, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Thanks for your comments! I'll take your recommendations into consideration and add them to my goodreads 'to read' bookshelf.
I also found it interesting (and much more personal) to learn my relationship to Joseph Smith. When I was growing up, I was knew a fellow my age named Joseph Smith. The dad's name was Hyrum Smith, and the son's name was Joseph Smith. Hyrum started a very popular company called Franklin, that did the day planners and later merged with Covey to become Franklin-Covey. He later had some rather public marriage scandals too.
Anyways, I would visit his home for parties once in a while, and I wondered what it would be like to be a direct relation to Joseph Smith. What kind of influence would it have on your life to have it be that personal. Would your testimony be better for it?
And now that I found out that I'm related, I have mixed emotions. I wouldn't be here, were it not for his philanderings with plural spiritual wives, so I'm grateful. But I wouldn't be in this emotional and spiritual mess if it weren't for Joseph's life too. So it angers me. In the words of that famous Disney fish Martin from 'Finding Nemo', "It's a complicated emotion."
May 6, 2008 at 10:00 AM
I know this is a really old thread, but I just stumbled across it. From what I've read so far you are very interested in the truth (and I assume are therefore interested in being corrected for the truth's sake).
While I believe that Joseph Smith f*ck*d around, my professional genealogist wife claims that for most of the lifetime of familysearch anybody could add records and neither the church nor any professional genealogist validated the records. What this means to me is that I won't use these records to prove (or disprove) any truth.
June 19, 2009 at 3:23 PM
That's a decent point. This does not prove that I have Joseph Smith's blood in me.
June 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM
Why don't you get a DNA test and then let us know if you are related?
July 21, 2009 at 11:54 PM
That's a good idea, if it were that simple, I would do exactly that. I mean, there is no question that I'm descended from Josephine Rosetta Lyons and Sylvia Sessions, the question is just whether or not Sylvia is telling the truth of her daughter Josephine.
Apparently, it is difficult to determine parenthood using DNA in this situation. I.e. as strange as it may seem, the technology doesn't exist, it needs to be developed, which would cost much more money than I have, or would even be interested in spending. See my link in this article about the ongoing investigation for more info concerning that.
July 22, 2009 at 5:58 AM
Well this means we are cousins as My ggg grandparents were John Fisher and Josephine.
One thing I just wanted to pose to you as I have done extensive reading on this point is Sylvia was dying and said that Josephine was Joseph's daughter. She may have been speaking in the sence of Biology or that they were sealed together and the eternities are theirs.
DNA testing has been done for all the boys who were questionable and none have strong enough DNA markers to prove the parentage. Josephine is the last big question and the Sorenson foundation is doing that testing and say it will be done as soon as they can.
I know Joseph Smith was a prophet although I want understanding as to the situation but I never can doubt a testimony that has been developed between my Heavenly Father and myself. I know that their are gruesome things that the Lord as asked his people to do that seem unreal to us. Hello...Abraham was to kill his precious boy...
August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Thanks for your comments Sister B. I am aware of the DNA testing going on concerning this, its interesting stuff. Even I posted a comment on this article concerning some of it.
What I'm a little confused about though is your statement: "I never can doubt a testimony that has been developed between my Heavenly Father and myself."
This indicates absolute certainty in your testimony, which I would think could only be attained through actually meeting the deity. According to Alma 32, we all have varying levels of faith, which conversly implies various levels of doubt, which is also perfectly OK both to the church, and should be OK with you personally too.
Just consider for a moment how many people of all different faiths claim levels of certainty on par with your own. Now ask, can all of us be right?
I think that a healthier (and even accepted in the church) approach would be to allow some questioning and pondering, both in your heart and in your mind.
Truth does not & should not fear careful scrutiny, skepticism and rigorous verification.
Truth that claims its veracity without scrutiny is no more than...well... its no more than an ideology. Which is OK. We all have our own 'developing' ideologies with personal truth. That's different though.
I guess I'm talking more about historicity. It seems pretty obvious that Joseph Smith didn't really have gold plates, and didn't really use them to write the book of Mormon. Even the RLDS church which asserted for so many years the 'historicity' of the plates has finally at least said that they didn't exist. This, the church founded by Joseph Smith's own family and actual witnesses to seeing the golden plates.
Think about that for a bit.
Thank you for reading.
August 6, 2009 at 5:15 PM
I assumed that everyone has those times when something happens and you are confronted with the reality of the truth according to you and your Heavenly Father. Just because of my religion that doesn't discount any one of another faith's experiences. As for myself, Joshep Smith as a Prophet leaves me with out questions in that area.
I question and ponder how to become a better person and how to best represent people of my faith in the mission field. How can I raise children to have a testimony and a knowledge of the things of a spiritual nature if I don't have one myself?
August 6, 2009 at 6:14 PM
"Just because of my religion that doesn't discount any one of another faith's experiences."
This should be true, but the Mormon faith doesn't actually allow it, I think.
Joseph Smith taught that his church was the -only- true church on the face of the earth.
That seems to discount the experiences of others quite a lot, doesn't it?
August 7, 2009 at 7:52 AM
I'm another cousin as well.
Last time I looked on LDS Family Search, Josephine was listed as Windsor P Lyon's daughter.
July 23, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Well, hello Cuz! I love reading back through this article. Sister B and I had some really interesting discussions I think. I love Alma 32. I love that it allows severe doubt in the church, and yet would still allow you to be in the church, all you want to be.
What I find disheartening is how Sister B declined to use it. In fact, I find that most LDS folks feel it would be going against their god, or doing disservice to their children to take advantage of this offering from their god.
Really, by not exploring the usage of Alma 32, they are poorly preparing themselves and their children for real, strong testimonies. The only testimony that can be reached without thorough scrutiny, sincere questioning and solid reasoning is a straw testimony built on a feeling.
A person can often assert that this is enough, while it actually isn't. The only reason they say it is enough is because they have been told so many times that it was that they now believe it.
The logic is circularly proved. The church is true because it says so. Such logic wouldn't stand in any court, and if I made a claim such as that in say the field of medicine, I would be dismissed out of hand.
July 24, 2010 at 12:45 AM
It's really really important to be careful when we try to assign children to Joseph Smith. There are big problems with most of the reasons you gave in your article. You may still be descended from him, but here are the huge problems:
*The church's software indicates that he is Josephine's father.
>I work with this software as a volunteer in a Family History Center, and it's not the software that indicates this, it's the information entered into it by the general public. And often, very often, that information is wrong. A member of the general public entered my great-grandmother in it as a man, and so she's been given the priesthood! I called the Temple Department in Salt Lake City about this and they said they are accepting all mistakes, for the time being, because partial errors might contain a germ of truth and now is not the time to be combing that stuff out.
*In an online article Josephine claims to have had a death bed conversation with her mother Sylvia Porter Sessions in which her mother told her that she was indeed Joseph's child.
>Online articles are very tricky because there's much less accountablity for honesty than for a print publication. For example, Wordpress doesn't get a bad name if I publish sloppy research, but Time Magazine would.
*Josephine's name takes root in Joseph's name itself.
>It does, but Joseph and Josephine were very common names in that era. MUCH more common than today.
May 12, 2013 at 2:17 PM
It's really really important to be careful when we try to assign children to Joseph Smith. There are big problems with most of the reasons you gave in your article. You may still be descended from him, but here are the huge problems:
*The church's software indicates that he is Josephine's father.
>I work with this software as a volunteer in a Family History Center, and it's not the software that indicates this, it's the information entered into it by the general public. And often, very often, that information is wrong. A member of the general public entered my great-grandmother in it as a man, and so she's been given the priesthood! I called the Temple Department in Salt Lake City about this and they said they are accepting all mistakes, for the time being, because partial errors might contain a germ of truth and now is not the time to be combing that stuff out.
*In an online article Josephine claims to have had a death bed conversation with her mother Sylvia Porter Sessions in which her mother told her that she was indeed Joseph's child.
>Online articles are very tricky because there's much less accountablity for honesty than for a print publication. For example, Wordpress doesn't get a bad name if I publish sloppy research, but Time Magazine would.
*Josephine's name takes root in Joseph's name itself.
>It does, but Joseph and Josephine were very common names in that era. MUCH more common than today.
May 12, 2013 at 2:18 PM
The science has come a long way since this original post. I am the founder of Mormongenomeproject.com which seeks to answer this very question. We are in the process of testing now. If you are interested please contact me!
July 22, 2015 at 10:17 PM
Well, according to this post:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865656112/Joseph-Smith-apparently-was-not-Josephine-Lyons-father-Mormon-History-Association-speaker-says.html?pg=all
Joseph isn't in my line at all.
June 14, 2016 at 2:20 PM
So, what are your thoughts and feelings about Joseph now?
Glenn
June 27, 2016 at 9:07 PM