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Smith family (Latter Day Saints)

American family associated with the Latter Day Saint movement

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 13, 2023
Entity authorityQ7545381 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Smith family is the name of an American family with many members prominent in religion and politics. The family's most famous member was Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Many other members of the family took on leadership roles in various churches within the movement.

First generation

Joseph Smith Sr.

Lived 1771–1840

Married: Lucy Mack in 1795

Father of Alvin, Hyrum, Sophronia, Joseph Jr., Samuel, Ephraim, William, Catherine or Katharine, Don Carlos, and Lucy (see Joseph Smith-History 1:4 and “Family of Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith: First Family of the Restoration,” December 2005 Ensign magazine)

brother of John Smith

Lucy Mack Smith

Lived 1775–1856

Married: Joseph Smith Sr. in 1795

Mother of Alvin, Hyrum, Sophronia, Joseph Jr., Samuel, Ephraim, William, Catherine or Katharine, Don Carlos, and Lucy (see Joseph Smith-History 1:4 and “Family of Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith: First Family of the Restoration,” December 2005 Ensign magazine)

John Smith

Lived: 1781–1854

brother of Joseph Smith Sr.

father of George A. Smith

Second generation: children of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack

Alvin Smith

Lived: 1798–1823

Oldest child of Joseph Smith Sr.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Smith family (Latter Day Saints)” as american family associated with the Latter Day Saint movement. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Smith, family and Latter.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1771, 1840, 1795, 2005—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Smith, family and Latter providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Smith family (Latter Day Saints)”, the useful work is to connect “american family associated with the Latter Day Saint movement” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 13, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q7545381. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1771, 1840, 1795 and 2005.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Smith family (Latter Day Saints)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Smith family (Latter Day Saints) primary sources, Smith family (Latter Day Saints) archive and Smith research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Smith family (Latter Day Saints)”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Smith family (Latter Day Saints)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.