Modern roots of polygamy in Utah and the United States can be traced back to 1929 to men said to have been "set apart" by Lorin Woolley, who in turn claims to have been secretly authorized by early LDS Church President John Taylor to perform plural marriages. Mormon fundamentalists believe that Taylor had a revelation in 1886 to continue the practice of plural marriage, a contention that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says is wrong.

Woolley then undertook naming a "Council of Friends," also known as the "Council of Seven," that included Leslie Broadbent, John Y. Barlow, Joseph Musser, Charles Zitting and Louis Kelsch. When he succeeded Woolley and Broadbent in seniority, Barlow ordained several other men, including Rulon Jeffs, father of Warren Jeffs.

Barlow started the United Order of Short Creek on the isolated Arizona-Utah border in 1940. Not long after Barlow died in 1949, his successor, Joseph Musser, was treated by a Salt Lake polygamist naturopath, Rulon Allred, for a series of debilitating strokes. When Musser ordained Allred "first elder," this angered other council members, who then split from the group.

When Musser died, his line went to Allred, who organized under the name Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), headquartered in the south end of Salt Lake County. Allred was later shot to death by order of rival polygamist leader Ervil LeBaron, head of the Church of the Lamb of God, also in Salt Lake County. The question of who has "priesthood authority" is still the main difference among today's various fundamentalist groups.

Other splinter groups include Centennial Park, begun by Marion Hammon and Alma Timpson in 1984, the Nielsen-Naylor group (a splinter from Centennial Park), and Winston Blackmore's group in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada.

Still other polygamous leaders, such as Jim Harmston of the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days, in Manti, say they receive their authority by "direct manifestation."

"We don't even mention them in the same breath," says Anne Wilde of the pro-polygamy coalition Principle Voices. "They're so radical."

There are also many "independent" polygamists who follow no leader at all. Some independents, as well as the Davis County Cooperative Society (known informally as the Kingston group), the AUB, Centennial Park and Nielsen-Naylor, are now members of Principle Voices.