My Polygamist Family History 

Same it’s the new true crime lol

Welcome to telestial kingdom 🪐

Its so fascinating lol mormons are my special interest as well and have never been a part of the church the book of mormon play is awesome too 😂😂​@@saratexas5181

Same here!

@@alyssadgrenfell For me, it started in true crime and with Jordan and McKay's videos with Fundie Fridays. I had no idea that I would become obsessed.

This is such an interesting way to find out you’re related to someone. Ah yes we were both related to people who believed that it was fine to marry someone half their age. I love the internet

@@ElGato-729 lol… and I didn’t have any clue. As far as I knew we were Irish Catholic on one side and protestant on the other. Lol. The Internet is a funny thing.

​@@ElGato-729I imagine most human beings can find that exact same connection somewhere down their family line.

I’m particularly interested in Sanford Porter, as I am a Porter. Is he descended from Richard Porter of Massachusetts or from John Porter of Connecticut?

@@nuplanner5345 Nathan and Susanna Porter from Massachusetts were his parents.

Same

i was about to comment something similar, she’s such a good communicator

Same!

It’s been so cool to see creators like this more and more speak out about these things because there are gaps in my understanding of it.

Agreed!

She would be SO proud!

💯

Absolutely this!

there were plenty of options for women in polygamy to leave, they never wanted to. they were actually very proud to be polygamists & would be disgusted that she’s left.

@@mongomaddyKeep telling yourself that. 😂😂 we’ll all just pretend there aren’t first hand accounts of women who escaped and spoke about how badly they were treated

I was thinking that too!

Gross as hell 🤮

As long as there isn't any blood relations and they are 18 it's not illegal. Just creepy.

You beat me to it. I think there have been multiple interviews with Soon-Ye where she says she is happy about it, which kind of mirrors the account of Lydia. Big yikes.

Ellon dad did something similar too i think

He definitely kidnapped her then poisoned Amy

I dont believe in that "tree" story too

It is possible that she came from an abusive household and that's why she was such an easy prey for that guy. She was so grateful for being given shelter and food that she honestly believed marrying him was the least she could do to repay his and his family's generosity.

Probably one of these three things, homestead was killed by bandits and she was left for dead, abusive father, or Indians.

right! I absolutely don't think that was the true story but a cover up... and a bad one at that

Hell yeah!

Got to make up for all that 10% she lost 😂

@@elibella5660 And pay 50% to the state religion's empire building.

He'll yeah. Make that money, Alyssa

1 Corinthians 3:3: "Jealousy is a sin "

I’m so sorry!

💙

The Mormon site also has info on Jewish lineage. I’ve found family info there

The LDS have a fascination with ancestry as they have a mission to baptize the dead.

My brother-in-law used to freelance as an ancestry researcher. People would pay him to track their family lines, which meant he would find pictures of grave stones (or contacting a living family member who lives in the town and asking them to go take pictures of the grave stones in the town). Apparently, he was pretty masterful at researching these things. The Holocaust did pose a problem, but now I’ve heard there’s a push to gather DNA from the mass graves and try to determine where people were buried. Maybe Google the Holocaust DNA project and see if you can find anything there.

That is so cool!!! Most of my ancestors didn’t get to America until just a few generations ago, and so they were more progressive than the average American at the time I guess. But on my dad’s side, Daniel Boone is my (several greats) great uncle- certainly nothing woke from him. I found out the other day that my great grandma on my mom’s side divorced her husband when my grandma was about six (so this was in like the 40s-50s) and ran her own flower shop to make a living, which is pretty cool. I would love to look more into why my ancestors decided to immigrate over here- some were Irish so I get that but many were from Germany, Poland, etc. as well. It would be so cool to find out if any of my ancestors really pushed for progressive change or if they were active in any interesting circles

That’s awesome!

She moved.

@@moonkey2712 Trust me… the pressure is still there, it’s just diluted!

Honestly, any time a man says "God says I get to marry this child" I don't understand how anyone reacts any other way than "God didn't say shit, you're just a sicko." (Or possibly, welp, then your God is a sicko.) I watched the Warren Jeffs documentary, and I was astounded people were still loyal to him at the end, despite the absolute mountains of evidence.

Same here!

Your willingness to be frank about both facts and feelings around religious matters is healing for me even though my spiritual scars arise from a different tradition. Thank-you.

The Jesus of the bible can heal that trauma. I am sorry it happened and hope that you find truth in love.

Wait ...where does Catholicism condone Polygamists?

​@@brettpinion4233 imo, it isn't a good idea to try to heal religious trauma with religion.

(this is your new mission. now work in a trip to italy somehow!)

They use quite young and naive people to go out there as missionaries. It’s despicable.

@@theuniversalconnection3510 yeah it's literally the second they become adults they basically have the choice of go on their mission or be cut off from the church and home and their family and basically all they know. It's a pretty impossible choice to give what are essentially still teens who know nothing of the world. I suppose that's the point, if they were allowed to mature into full adults more might refuse.

But if they are right none of you will be in the Missionary position again in the Afterlife!

That’s quite the surreal experience! 😮

The God Squad was probably notified and had eyes on you the whole time.

there is most definitely “something wrong with that”

@@smile-uj4io No there isn't

Interestingly, I think some of the ex-FLDS RU-vidrs are from 'round those parts and you might find some of them have made videos in or around that town.

I’m also swedish and it’s exactly how it started for me too. Had an old classmate at uni who was Mormon (from jönköping, of course) and I had a very basic understanding of the Mormon church. There’s also a couple of episodes of Sektpodden where they talk to an exmo if you want to hear what it’s like to be Mormon in Sweden

@@alextheasparagus6675 Great tip, tack! 😊

Omg I have noticed more and more Mormons around Stockholm. Some of my friends have gotten hand written letters from them in their mailboxes also!

@@itchymagnets whaaat I’ve only gotten hand written letters from JW

😅😅

> the negative consequences of inbreeding disappear after a single generation of outside marriage Not only that, but first-cousin inbreeding is actually not too bad, biologically speaking, when it occurs as a once-off. It takes closer marriage (like siblings) or multiple generations of cousins all inbreeding, before problems usually arise.

They don't disappear, they just become less likely after each degree of separation. Technically the "cut off" is after second cousin consanguinity. What this all means is 1st and 2nd cousin consanguinity has a slightly higher chance for birth defects than offspring produced by strangers. Beyond 2nd cousin, the birth defects rates are no longer significantly raised vs strangers

@@Trenz0 I don't mean your parents being 2nd cousins vs 1st cousins, I mean your grandparents being 1st cousins vs your parents.

I also have a first cousin marriage in my family, also in the Belle Epoque. No Mormons, they were Methodists. Just very rich and with pretensions to aristocracy😂.

Yeah, cousin marriage doesn't usually really start causing problems until it's widespread enough to start producing "ladder" cousins.

I wonder if you got out before the policy went into place and they are now using this as one final reason for folks to not leave the church.

I was wondering if that weren't the case. I have an account and am not a member of the LDS church (gentile 😜), although I did sign up 10+ years ago. It doesn't give quite the same document access as an Ancestry membership, but if you're on a budget - boy, is it pretty similar! There is something to be said for the work done by the church in digitizing and preserving genealogical records. Obviously they have their own motivations, but I am still glad that it's being done and provides such a great (free) resource for those looking into their family history. It does assign you a unique ID (ex. AB1C-2D3), and under Account it has the option to "Add Church Record Number". I would try making an account without any information that may be flagged / blacklisted - email, name, even IP addresses just to be 💯.

@@cdpbryant Yep, I have an account too and not a church member. I've often wondered how I would be received at one of the research centres as I would love to see some of the documents that I can't access as a non church member. Has anyone (UK based) done this?

Don’t you have to pay a fee?

@@lehcarbunny1 I'm in Las Vegas, so not too far from Salt Lake City. Actually contemplating going in-person someday soon. Will reply when I do!

Do you mind sharing which country you are from?

This was really sweet and probably the perfect way to interact with them.

It is a weird American cult.

Omg I had the exact same experience as you too! I was in Taiwan 2 weeks ago and randomly chanced by a Mormon temple in the middle of Taipei and I saw a pair of Mormon missionaries crossing the road. They looked so young and they were paired up exactly like how Alyssa described for overseas missions. A Caucasian boy with an Asian boy. They looked really tired and I felt so sorry for them. I later looked up Mormonism in Taiwan and turns out they have one of the largest Mormon population in Asia

It's 100% is a cult and not a legitimate religion.

Yeah, I have a friend who had to escape her family because they were gonna ship her to Pakistan (from Canada) to marry a first cousin in an arranged marriage! Yuck!

Any prohibition on it in the West, however, seems to be cultural rather than legal. The Book of Common Prayer doesn't consider a marriage between first cousins to be incestuous. The laws of California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Tennessee do not prohibit it (I figure that since these 4 states agree, it is the same in all the U.S. States). It is permitted in Jewish Halakah. The Catholic Church prohibits it, but only as a matter of Church Law rather than Natural Law, so first cousins who want to marry may get a dispensation to be allowed to do so. A rare first cousin pairing in an otherwise genetically diverse family tree is probably Ok as far as defects go. It seems that the problem arises when there are multiple successive generations with first cousin marriages that start causing stuff like Hapsburg Chin.

The legality of first cousins marrying each other varies from state to state. 24 states prohibit first cousin marriages, 19 allow them, and 7 only allow certain types of them (example: both cousins are over 50 years old).

My grandparents were first cousins. It had to do with cultural reasons and keeping land out of Muslim hands. My family is fucking crazy

@@wombatkins Do you think that the crazy was caused by the first cousin marriage, or would they have been crazy regardless?

Do you have a source for this? It sounds plausible but I can't find any sources confirming it

How old time, a ton of older movies, like 50s-60s. It is used pretty generously for any sort of death after losing a spouse.

Source?

Wow, there's an actual medical condition too - "Takotsubo cardiomyopathy".

Although that is true in most cases, people can medically die of a broken heart. It's called broken heart syndrome.

2nd year undergraduate anthropology major here. This channel has gotten me into theology

Agreed, when the partner don't consent, it's sex abuse. Mormons are notorious for sex abuse and the subsequent cover ups by Kirtand McConkie lawyers. They need a fat 50% taxation in order to pay for the victims mental health care who were ritually abused by a tithing payer priesthood holder, who has more worth to the corporation than the children molested in this cult

Well, polygamy is super messed up, especially to women, and you SHOULD have a problem with it.

​@@lunalee3021 I hold it to the same standards of any relationship. If they consent, know what their consenting too, are over 18 and aren't behind mentally (like not an 18 year old and 50 year old), aren't forced to be with them, and no one gets hurt (mentally and physically) then let them be in a relationship. I understand that a lot of (if not most) poly relationships are terrible. But a 100 years ago lots of homosexual relationships were in the same boat of being extremely terrible, and (obviously) being gay is not morally wrong in any way. And their are millions of the most hellborn straight relationships. I just look at it as what it is, 3+ people being together romantically/sexully. If I find out it's any of the things things listed above, then I will problem with it.

@@rr.aionamaThe sort of informed, consensual relationship style you're talking about is usually referred to as polyamory, and "poly" (or increasingly "polyam") usually refers to polyamory. Words have definitions but words also have connotations. Saying polygamy has the connotations of the awful practices referred to in the video, whereas saying polyamory has the connotations of informed consent.

​@@queens.dee.223 Oh Damn, my bad. I should have used that. I usually just say poly so I mix the two word up. Thanks for telling me, I'll edit the comment.

God have mercy. Would like to say that the New Testament of the Bible is the best read, even though the whole Bible is the best read in general, that anyone reading would benefit greatly...of course when the mind is set on God, for Him being the revealer of His Word and His Holy Spirit surely does and not according to human time cause God is outsidw of our time, His time is not like ours. To have faith the size of a mustard seed goes a long way and foremost faith in God, wanting to know His truth, which He surely does reveal. The New Testament is filled with Parables of God and it can be hard to understand with the human way of understanding things But to trust God that He would be the revealer of His Word, His Spirit of truth surely does reveal and the best truth to be understood is His Words of Truth and foremost having the assurance for having eternal life with God in Paradise. To have eternal life is so easy and all it takes is faith; believing that God did really come down to earth as Jesus Christ, that He would be to once and forever sacrifice which would wipe away all sin from the believer whom believes Jesus is The Saviour and that He is God. Eternal life is offered by God and all whom believe can have the assurance for immortal life when this one on earth comes to a close. Religions have caused so much confusion to folks and the culprit of all the lies is the devil satan himself, which he whispers all day long to people that they would listen and the worst thing that anyone can do is to believe his lies and sad to say but many churches have listened and have been swayed to go about the gospel in all sorts of ways but the truth of Christ, and Jesus' truth is so simple to grasp that a child can hear, believe and have assurance for eternal life. The gospel of Jesus was made so simple to hear and believe, even though the Bible can be a hard read to understand the mysteries of God and God made it to be so on purpose, because it takes His Holy Spirit to understand the depth of the Bible, which is His Living Words of Truth. With Holy Spirit anyone can have as His gift for understanding, same as it is with eternal life, it is the free gift that God gives through believing Jesus Christ; that God Himself came to earth to save all whom would simply believe Him. The rest of the Bible is for nourishment while being on earth and even though it is a harder book to read, as I know so to be the case for me too, yet at the same time Holy Spirit provides exactly what God knows is good for me to understand....foremost what matters to God is belief in Him and what He did by going to the cross/tree, which believing Jesus Christ and His finished work, it is a guarantee for having His seal for eternal life in Paradise with God. Anyhow, may what is written be of an encouragement to whomever is reading and foremost may God Himself be the way maker for His truth and His truth sets the heart, mind and soul free and the best news ever is to be free in God and have His assurance for being called children in God and forevermore having eternal life with Him, which truly is closer than anyone of us can imagine. Blessings. 🤍🕊️🤍

@@John_Lete thanks but im not reading all that sir ✌

It is a matter of truth for having eternal life for free. We all have the freedom to choose what we want to choose, though It sure would be wonderful to see you and your loved ones in Paradise forevermore, simply by receiving Jesus' gift. 🤍

It is a matter of truth for having eternal life for free. We all have the freedom to choose what we want to choose, though It sure would be wonderful to see you and your loved ones in Paradise forevermore, simply by receiving Jesus' gift. 🤍

We all have the right to choose what we want to, though It sure would be wonderful to meet in Paradise. 🤍

yup, they're known as the lost boys and were sent away so that the older men could have the young women that would've been the lost boys wives.

Strictly speaking, that's only true of polygyny or polyandry. For the much rarer case of societies with "symmetric" polygamy, where a person of _any_ gender can have multiple spouses, you don't get that problem. But since the LDS have only ever been about polygyny, never polyandry, that distinction doesn't much matter here.

I was reading the history of one of my ancestors and apparently somehow one of them lured away a Hershey girl (yes, from the famous Hershey's chocolate family in Pennsylvania) of only 14 years to go to Utah to be a 3rd wife in the middle if nowhere, southern Utah. It must have been a miserable experience for my great great great grandmother.

@@DaraelDraconis Are there societies where both exist? My Anthropology class 20 years ago said there was only one society known to have polyandry. It was high in the mountains of Tibet (if I recall correctly) where all farming was done on limited terraced land. The land was passed through the male line. A woman would marry _all_ of the brothers in one family, keeping the land together. These families would farm. Single women did other trades within the society. Fascinating

@@jenniferpearce1052 I'm not aware of societies where both are widespread, but it's possible to look at those who practise poly_amoury_ on a long-term committed basis to get at least _some£ ideas of how equal-access polygamy (as opposed to exclusive polyandry or polygyny) might play out. The specific question of whether you then have to find something to do with the unpartnered or recruit externally, though… that just stands to reason, since the problem arises from gender-limiting polygamy.

@@5thDimension-369 quiet liar.

Yes, perhaps with Joseph Smith surviving the LDS would have gone the way of many of these religious movement and vanished. Especially if he would go on doing questionable things and go for more power at all costs. Idealistic members, believing in helping each other and striving for more together, might have been alienated by this "all for one" attitude of Smith.

Me too English atheist living in Spain going down this mormon rabbit hole with this bird. I also went to watch all the South Park mormon stuff

I'd personally identify as strongly agnostic but it's quite easy to reject the Ideas of Mormonism, with the distance across the Atlantic giving a lot more perspective. My home region of Germany is deeply stepped in Catholicism, I sometimes find myself in those traditions without believing

Ha!

There's at least 1 Aussie atheist watching here and subbed as well.

English athiest here too. However my dad was raised mormon after his parents converted. He became athiest at university studying physics.

Good because you're going to hear some doctrines and practices by this religion that will make you cringe. Alyssa does a great job explaining it from personal experience and without exaggerating the facts.

were you horrified?

@@jacquelinecallejas1390 Thankfully, no

.... Says a "King Henry" who started his own religion, too. 😉😊

lol same here.

I came searching for this comment 😂

Yeah it would have been funny if she played that theme music!

My dad's parents were first cousins as well. My grandfather was severely traumatized in WW2 (as a German soldier on the Russian front, I'm afraid) and came back with a severe social phobia. He and my grandmother were both orphans and best friends, and my grandmother also didn't feel like she was very pretty and didn't have any other suitors, so they somehow decided to get married to each other. Through doing genealogy, I found out that their respective mothers were from completely different areas, no family tree overlap whatsoever, and a couple of ancestors a generation or two earlier even joined the family tree from different countries, so I guess that genetic variety helped fend off potential genetic problems. In my mom's family tree, there are no first or second cousins, but plenty of third cousins or fourth cousins because her ancestors mostly stayed in the same area, marrying someone from the same village or one or two villages over was the norm. My great-grandmother was the exception to this rule, having moved more than a hundred miles before meeting my great-grandfather. He used to tell a story where he was asked why he married a girl from so far away, and he replied "the bible says that of all evils you should choose the smallest" (she was quite short. Maybe the saying works better in German. 😉)

It’s not good for the family, but it’s (still) normal in many cultures unfortunately. Back in the days families did this intentionally to maintain wealth, keep the bloodline “pure” if they were royal or to tie the two families even stronger. It was more political and financial than anything else (just like marriage back in the days) I think there’s absolutely no reason to marry a blood relative in modern days (our ancestors shouldn’t be doing that either, but, well, they did what they did. There’s no changing that).

where they french, spanish or english people?

@@Alimon96 If they came in through the southern ports, they were most likely, Scottish or Irish...or they could have been slaves.

Luckily my grandma parents are both immigrants from two completely different countries lol

Are you descended from one of the few Jamestown settlers that survived the Starving Time, or one of the later ships?

I have a similar story. Arrived in Jamestown in 1620s and never left VA. We equate ourselves to friends you invited over for a weekend and never left.

I'm here for the collapse like watching a train wreck while eating popcorn 😅

😭

Thank you for watching! :) Yes, I have wanted to do a long form video about Utah for a long time! I am headed there in August so maybe I'll make one while I am there!

@@alyssadgrenfell Ooh nice, looking forward to it!

It’s not parasocial if it’s mutual, and now we’ve met through this comment :) so nice to meet you, and thank you for this comment! I hope you enjoy the video 💙

What if the Morfmon church, is directly tied to American government, which is capable of figuring out most any information on the planet.

Considering the relationship of the LDS Church and Scouts USA (formerly Boy Scouts), and the Eagle Scout to Military pipeline, I don’t think it’s that far fetched.

They are collectors of souls. If any descendent converts, they are seen to bring all their ancestors into the church.

They have a lot, but I’ve also found a lot of stuff that appears to me to be erroneous - different people conflated as the same person, etc. Not to mention some of the transcriptions that were done by what I assume to be Mormon workers or volunteers are complete insane and make me wonder whether they actually know how to read English. For instance, someone transcribed “Ludovick Hill” as “Fredswick Hell.” There are several completely crazy ones along those lines that lead me to believe that whoever did the work was totally on autopilot.

Tons of erroneous, unsourced information. Drives me nuts. Citations, people!

Here is your award! 🏆 :)

@@alyssadgrenfell yay thank you! :)

Good luck on your finals.

You do have a point , though I wild argue that Muhammad (may peace be upon him ) was only following God’s order so we should exclude him when talking about Muslim men in general . I would say that religious priests is Islam used the fact that Arabic is a very difficult language to understand and the fact many people couldn’t read in order to control them and to gain more power . So I would say that actually Islam does not permit polygamy , but the men ( extrem religious men ) played with the explanations and changed them and made people believe them

@@darknightmare7281 Arabic being a "very difficult language to understand" is a very weak argument since there are harder languages to learn like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hungarian etc.

@@darknightmare7281what a great peaceful religion that allows for so much confusion and misinterpretation. Truly the work of an all knowing god!

wouldn’t want it any other way!

Yeah I think they stopped letting people leave officially after like 2009 or earlier probably because of the amount of people leaving after the scandal earlier in the decade among other things.

Yes! I was able to see a lot of the open source information, but my account is no longer connected in with the rest of my family, as it was when I was a member. So I can click through many of the people (especially people pre-1950s), I just cannot see my direct line.

@@alyssadgrenfell Use Ancestry, which allows you to use the Mormon records without them knowing.

​​@@alyssadgrenfellYou should still be connected to your family because let's face it You've got paperwork backing up the fact that you have a mother and a father and siblings or whatever. You shouldn't be disconnected just because you left the church. That's like saying because I was adopted and did a DNA test and found out that I was the child of an affair I no longer have the right to associate or link myself to my adopted family in my family tree when all my documentation is under my adopted name not my biological.

I assume you created yourself in FamilySearch. Create your parents and grandparents (if alive) and link to your dead ancestors. I’m not a church member so not sure what is behind that log in but as a non-member I can see all kinds of info on my ancestors. Have to take with a grain of salt of course.

I drink the devils juice all day while smoking the devils lettuce lol!

​@@jamesbrooks3664 the devil has a great menu I like Satan tacos 🌮 😅

Well, I'll take this "tied to a tree" story with a grain of salt. Sure, she might have been an orphan or better of without her birth family - but her new life wasn't what I would wish for anyone.

Be prepared, Sandra Tanner is a conservative Christian now and is anti-gay-marriage etc. Her study of Mormonism is definitely biased toward conservative Christianity.

@@xavierrodriguez1370 you should know fruitcake.