He wanted an apology to Emma Smith's family.

"What?!" Brigham Young's descendants said, according to Mary Ellen Elggren. "What are they talking about?"

In 2007, Elggren was president-elect of the Brigham Young Family Association when she first heard that Michael Kennedy, president of the Joseph Smith Jr. Family Organization, wanted an apology.

"I was totally puzzled over this," Elggren said.

Kennedy, however, was not puzzled. He was baptized as a Mormon in 1973 — the first male descendant of Joseph and Emma Smith to join the LDS Church and be ordained an elder. He knew firsthand the prejudices that kept the families of Emma and Brigham apart.

"From the LDS perspective you've got a woman who did not come West. She is living very well. Her life is set. She's financially stable. She has not had to go through near the heartaches or the troubles that the Latter-day Saints did when they were trying to cross the plains and come up here and start everything afresh. So there is a little bit of resentment there," Kennedy said.

Read the full story on MormonTimes.com.