View source for Question: Did Fanny Alger have a child by Joseph Smith?

{{FairMormon}}
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==Question: Did Fanny Alger have a child by Joseph Smith?==
===A suggestion that Fanny was pregnant by Joseph surfaced in an 1886 anti-Mormon book with a claim that Emma "drove" Fanny out of the house===

The first mention of a pregnancy for Fanny is in an 1886 anti-Mormon work, citing Chauncey Webb, with whom Fanny reportedly lived after leaving the Smith home.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Wyl:Mormon Portraits Volume First|pages=57}} {{CriticalWork:Young:Wife No. 19/Full title|pages=66–67}} Discussed in {{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140}} Also in {{Book:Compton:ISL/Short|pages=34–35}}</ref> Webb claimed that Emma "drove" Fanny from the house because she "was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet."  If Fanny was pregnant, it is curious that no one else remarked upon it at the time, though it is possible that the close quarters of a nineteenth-century household provided Emma with clues.  If Fanny was pregnant by Joseph, the child never went to term, died young, or was raised under a different name.

===Fawn Brodie claimed that Fanny's son Orrison was the son of Joseph Smith, but this was disproven by DNA research===

Fawn Brodie, in her critical work ''No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith'', claimed that “there is some evidence that Fannie Alger bore Joseph a child in Kirtland.”<ref>Fawn Brodie, ''No Man Knows My History''.</ref> However, DNA research in 2005 confirmed Fanny Alger’s son Orrison Smith is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.<ref>Ugo A. Perego, Natalie M. Myers, and Scott R. Woodward, “Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications, ''Journal of Mormon History'' Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer 2005) 70-88.</ref>
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[[Category:American Massacre]]
[[Category:No Man Knows My History]]

[[es:Pregunta: ¿Fanny Alger tuvo un hijo de Joseph Smith?]]