I ordered the new DVD mentioned in my Lesson 40 post, and it came within days. It is a half-hour documentary, not really dramatized but with a few clips from the Emma movie. Most of it is Joseph's and Emma's descendants who are members of the Church speaking, as well as other historians, giving the history of the family briefly, and then the history of the gathering they have been doing.
As of the production time of the DVD, which was very recent, there were 129 descendants of Joseph and Emma who have joined the Church, but each time they gather, they find the number has increased. There are only about 1,000 living descendants altogether, so over one-tenth have been gathered back to the Church in these fourth and fifth generations, the generations in which it was prophecied by Elder George A. Smith that their children would return!
A few people claiming, through their family's oral history, to be descendants of Joseph Smith through plural wives have gone through DNA testing, and all have been proved not to be descended from Joseph Smith, so all of the known descendants of Joseph are Emma's children. (See http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Children_of_polygamous_marriages for explicit test results. The results are also noted in the DVD.)
"I believe that Joseph and Emma are deeply involved from beyond the veil in all the things that are unfolding in our lives today." --Gracia Jones, Great-Great Granddaughter
(Source: "Children of Joseph: The Unknown Story" DVD)
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Your posts are wonderful - thank you so much for the contribution of time and thought. I'm ordering the DVD today and renewing my interest in the history of Joseph and Emma and their posterity. Your spirit and testimony come through clearly in these virtual lessons and I appreciate it!
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