Now i’m not accusing anything. I myself was a Mormon but have been inactive for a couple of years now. But my mom is a devout Mormon. I just want to know the truth. If many of the church presidents are indeed members of this bloodline and secret societies such as the Freemasons this could be really really bad, and i would want my mother to know about this as well as any other members of the church. The only way to find out for sure is to find the complete family trees of these people which i just haven’t been able to do. and i have never done genealogy before so i don’t really know how to go about doing it. So if anyone has the geneology of any of the prophets that goes way way back i would really like to see it.

“Anyway, the important thing is this: nepotism is only going to be a problem if it continues much longer. As the church keeps growing, the need to continually call fresh leaders from outside of Utah to move into that area and serve in the top leadership is essential. I think Elder Uchtdorf is only the beginning of that trend”

I think you are right. But, what is interesting is that many members of the church have been hoping and praying for a Latino Apostle in recognition of the huge church population in Latin America. It hasn’t happened yet, but I am sure it will in a short time.

But it is also interesting to me that the some of sons (and son in laws) of most apostles throughout the history of the Church and continuing today seem to get called to high leadership positions.

Now this will happen less and less if the church continues to grow, but in our current situation, it can’t be helped. So how do you determine nepotism? First you have to determine qualification (which in the case of spiritual leadership is incredibly difficult–I know, I have a fair bit of training in job analysis, which is all about determining the qualifications for a job). Are the people being called qualified. In other words are people getting called ONLY because they are related to someone else or in LARGE part because of their relation?

Second, you have to determine the ratios–and we have four boxes–qualified vs. unqualified, people in the position, people not in the position. In a normal job, it’s all about who applied, but in the church, we don’t think of it that way–so we have look at who is considered, but we don’t know that. So for the purposes of this we would have to assume that God is considering every qualified male member of the church for any leadership position that opens and for YW/RS positions, every qualified female member of the church. We could narrow the field quite a bit by tossing out certain groups, but I don’t think we will…

Let’s say that by ‘qualified’, we mean merely ‘active’, although ‘active temple attenders’ is probably more accurate. I don’t know what the activity rates are in every location, so I’m going to say 50%. So, let’s just say 50% of 13 million= 6.5m, and 50% of that (male)=3.25m and 50% of that (which I’m sure is nowhere near accurate) is melchizedek priesthood)=1.6125m as a figure of the potential number of ‘applicants’ for all leadership positions for all church positions top to bottom, including GA’s.

There is considerably more fluidity towards the bottom (somewhat like a freezing river) in these callings, so the nepotism, if it exists is not only more severe at the top, its going to be more noticeable and problematic. So we have to see first of these 1.6 million men, what proportion are related to those that are currently serving or have served in the past in the top leadership. I’d say 2 generations as a cap (so grandfathers, but no more). In-laws of the immediate generation are also going to be included, but a grandson-in-law is not. From there, I would further need to know what proportion of the leaders fall in this category and what do not, and then what proportion of those in this category are NOT in leadership positions.

Now, having done all that hard work (okay, I haven’t really, but I would love to have the time and information to do actually do it), let’s say we find evidence of nepotism as defined by showing a clear pattern of men who are related to current or former presidents or apostles (I think we need to limit it to just the first presidency and quorum of the twelve as they are the ones issuing the calls for the most part…) being called to be GA’s. What then? What does that show? There are so many confounding variables that we have only begun to scratch the surface. Which is why sociology and psychology get a bad rap. Because human sciences are so blasted hard to deal with.

We are constantly struggling with the fact that 90% of our variables are confounded by other variables, which in turn have confounding variables. I think that of the physical sciences only meteorologists truly understand how that feels…economists, of course, are of the same stripe as us.

Physicists, having finally nailed down the easy stuff, are finally learning what hard problems really are, but they have the advantage of hundreds of years of practice. They’ve learned that a solid foundation of math is important. Psychologists (blasting my own field a bit, because I can), on the other hand, have still got to learn that. Even the psychologists that are good at math don’t think it’s all that important to make sure that we are all good at it. Oh well.

Anyway, the important thing is this: nepotism is only going to be a problem if it continues much longer. As the church keeps growing, the need to continually call fresh leaders from outside of Utah to move into that area and serve in the top leadership is essential. I think Elder Uchtdorf is only the beginning of that trend (oh, and by the way, just who is he related to?) I know–it’s because he’s successful and rich–which is true, but think about it like this–he’s obviously deserving of that position. You can’t meet the man and not know that he’s not a spiritual person.

I went year by year through the LDS Church News Archives to see the callings of Mission Presidents. i would have gone all the way (from 1988), but ran out of time. It was quite tedious but it is interesting to see where these mission Presidents come from and their history. What I wasn’t really able to tell is if any GAs from South America had sons who became mission presidents. those GAs tend to be younger so their kids are still young.

The church news lists the wife and her parents. In some cases, I had to use Family Search to confirm some of the older relationships.

How did you discover more distant relationships existed, like Elder Nelson’s sons-in-law both called as mission presidents in 2004? Does the Church almanac really list that? I would suspect that the incidence of relation with mission presidents would be higher than in the Quorum of 12, mainly because of the large number needing to be called each year, and the relatively low visibility when nepotism does occur. Availability interviews are conducted by apostles and other General Authorities with mission president candidates to determine not just worthiness but health conditions, family situation, financial impact of a call, etc. That would be a prohibitive thing to do a lot of–I could see a lot of these relationships precluding the need for additional travel on the part of General Authorities.

Quinn believes that nepotism occurs because it is an additional check on loyalty. I thought that that was interesting.

But, the same condition applies in Church as in business, that you are more likely to call on people you know and trust. The same is true on the local level as well. The dramatic calling of a brother or sister out of the congregation, previously unknown to everyone, is not common, if it ever happens.

Other the other hand, I would never say that a GA’s family should not be able to serve in a leadership position just because of the connection because, as I stated in my blog, I am sure growing up in the GA family is a wonderful experience. Except for the Dad’s (and sometimes, the Mom’s) time away from home.

I, too, had Reed as an instructor. However, I thought his class was utterly worthless. Lots of rote memorization with absolutely no doctrinal discussion. Hated every minute of it.

I am fully aware that many times callings are made in terms of who is able to best serve, and best known to the person making the call. I’m a bit confused as to how close it is kept “in the family” with as many qualified people there are in the Salt Lake area. Maybe there arn’t very many spiritual people there and so they have to go “back to the well” on a very frequent basis.

“Interesting post, Jeff. I assume you are bringing up bloodlines because, as a Levite, you are wondering when your blood right to the Bishopric will be recognized in your home ward? :)”

Funny, you should say that! My Grandfather was a Levite, but since I am the product of his daughter and my dad, i am not since it is patriarchal.

Beside, no one I know would want to be Bishop, would they? Especially when they have been. or been a counselor. And certainly not to serve without counselors!

Luckily, Bookslinger is right on the literal descendant of Aaron business. There was a funny story about that which I need to find.

So, from a purely practical standpoint, I would exclude all MP’s (and Auxiliary Presidency members, since they tend to live in the SLC area to avoid having to relocate) from the list. I would focus on the 12 and the 70 - the true “General Authorities” - who were called after 1900 (at the earliest) and compute the actual percent of those callings that have been filled over the years by family of that same group.

Although in religious realms I’d be more concerned about it I guess.

1. Through great research, you’ve found 100 family connections in leadership callings. I wonder what percentage that comes out to when you consider how many hundreds of thousands of callings are in the total pool? For example, do family connections exist in 1% of callings? 10%? 25%? I think that number is the relevant one to determine whether nepotism exists.

2. I agree there are thousands of people who are qualified and worthy to be general officers of the church, but the Brethren can’t be expected to know them all. So they have to rely on the people they DO know, and that of course includes their family.

3. I think nepotism is a concern if you’re calling an UNQUALIFIED candidate to an office because of a family connection. But so long as they’re calling QUALIFIED family members, I have no problem with that; there are thousands who are capable and one is as good as any other.

4. A funny note. People often do family history to discover whether they have a royal bloodline. In my case, I discovered that as of 1880, my pioneer great-great-great grandfather was divorced and living with his mother at age 50, was illiterate, and was working as a janitor in a pool hall in Richfield, UT. How’s that for royal blood, baby?!

I wish my blood was believing. Then I might have a boat (to be used only on Saturdays for the benefit of the youth.)

I loved your quote KC…Brilliant.

I fixed the Packer listing

The recent conference report listed Alan Packer of Sandy, Utah, as a new member of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy. And F. Michael Watson, the secretary to the First Presidency. Is he a relation, I wonder?

I agree, the older connection, GGF, GGGF, etc are too remote to make a real connection. But, I think, pioneer blood runs very deep and a lot of folks are very proud and very loud about those connections. They do matter somewhat. But, then again, everyone in Utah is related by marriage, aren’t they….

I do have a few questions about methodology, though. Presumably, in the early days of the church, almost everyone was related, so it wasn’t really nepotism. As the church grows, the percentage should get lower over time. So understanding the ratio over time might be useful. We would need to know what the denominator is here, probably for each position listed.

Some of these positions are much more common than others (mission president & patriarch and even 70 and GAs to some extent), so I think it makes the list a lot longer than it would otherwise be. Here’s the breakdown of what comprises your list (you had 101 on your list, making the math pretty easy):
Patriarchs - 5%
President - 8%
Women (lumped all together) - 14%
Mission Presidents - 21%
Quorum of the 12 Apostles - 21%
(As they say on Gilligan’s Island) “And the rest” - 32%

I’ll have to crack open the Almanac to see how many have held these offices to date and we’ll see what’s what.

Finally a comment on the chart. Some of the names are from a time when the church was so small that a significant degree of inter-connectednes was (as you point out) to be expected. Others are far removed from their general authority ancestors.

Nepostism (perceived or real) always rubs me the wrong way. If I were running the Church (a frightening thought), I would need a very, very direct revelation to call a sibling, child or in-law to a promnent position.

Of interest, the phrase “royal blood” was also used to delineate early “chosen” Mormon lineages, particularly the Smith family. Brigham Young went so far in Nauvoo as to say that by taking the reigns of the LDS church, he was “protecting” the “royal blood,” in the person of Joseph Smith III. Brigham claimed at the time that if “young Joseph” was to become president of the LDS church, “his blood would be sought.”

I think the lesson we can all learn from the “nepotism” of the church is that there are many in our congregations that would serve just fine in the general offices of the church, but because of location, circumstance, or whatever, are not called to those offices. The Lord will accomplish his work through his willing servants regardless of whom is called. Does that drive a nail in the coffin of predestination? Certainly. Does that turn us all into mindless cogs in a machine? I don’t think so. Is the church the worse for the fact that many of the general offices have been filled with people related to other general authorities over time? Perhaps so, perhaps not; we can be reasonably sure that the Lord is still in charge, and that his work is indeed rolling forth despite us all.

People should concern themselves with their own callings and their own spheres of influence. When Jesus comes back then things can really get fixed. I don’t really think things are fundamentally broken as much as you have a bunch of people (imagine that! Humans) actually running things. I suppose we could put chimps in there, but then things really would never get done. When the Lord put people in there, he knew what he was doing, and was apparently aware that these kinds of things would happen.

BTW, love the J Golden remark.

In addition, there are dozens if not hundreds of men in the church qualified to fill these positions. So why not pick someone you know? So I guess the question is, is nepotism a problem when qualified men (or men as qualified as would be called otherwise) are being called?

The process of picking Mission Presidents come first from Stake Presidents. They are asked to submit some names of men in their Stake who, in their opinion, would qualify. In many cases, it is the Stake Presidents themselves, nearing the end of their term that get picked by the AA70s and Apostles they come in contact with.

They have more contacts with the Apostles than you might think. At least twice a year, if not more.

Probably some of both. But if there is rampant nepotism, it’s a long-established pattern. Just look at the network of related prophets/kings/judges in the Book of Mormon. Of course, there may have been completely different cultural expectations than we have now.

If nepotism was NOT a problem at all, I don’t think Pres. Hinckley would have gone to such great lenghts to assure us that Richard Hinckley’s name was not submitted by his dear old dad.

I think, though, that in the case of, say, Quentin L. Cook, the fact that he was a great-great-grandson of Heber C. Kimball was incidental to his call, whereas in the case of Richard Hinckley and Allan Packer, their fathers being apostles is why they were on the radar screen of selection in the first place.

We know so little about the process of calling new mission presidents and General Authorities. John Dehlin mentioned a General Authority Candidate Database which he worked on years ago, so there is more formality and structure to these calls than we would be inclined to think.

The question is, who gets to nominate candidates to this database? I would assume that it is not coincidental that two sons-in-law of Elder Nelson were called as mission presidents in the same year. Those doing the nominating should have a fairly good idea of the candidate’s worthiness and finances, for instance, which family might be able to do.

I wonder though whether some of these folks who have relatives already serving in the hierarchy struggle with a reduced sense of authority as they exercise their callings, as many will think they know why they were really called.

“Some people say a person receives a position in this church through revelation, and others say they get it through inspiration, but I say they get it through relation. If I hadn’t been related to Heber C. Kimball, I wouldn’t have been a damn thing in this church.”