There is a persistent idea among older generations that Wilford Woodruff Luce, Sr. (1838-1904) was a son of Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898), the 4th President of the LDS Church. Others of the same generation find it necessary to vehemently deny the story.
This is almost certainly nothing more than a confusion of names, compounded by the fact Woodruff converted the Luces to Mormonism, and led them from Maine to Nauvoo. In fact, Wilford Luce was born in November 1838, during that journey. Nothing would be more in keeping with human nature than to name the baby for the leader of the company. Moreover, Woodruff was newly married to his first wife (April 1837), and there is no evidence he knew Joseph Smith had begun to preach polygamy. Woodruff did not marry his first polygamous wife until 1846.
Those who doubt circumstantial evidence respond that Woodruff was physically present in Vinalhaven in February 1838, so could have been Wilford Luce’s father.
This is exactly the type of question that can be easily settled by genetic testing. The yDNA signature of Wilford Woodruff is known from the Woodruff DNA Project, and there are half a dozen male-line descendants of Wilford Luce who could be tested.
We finally ended up doing that in 2020, but we knew the answer even before that. Wilford Luce was almost certainly a son of Stephen Luce and not of the Wilford Woodruff. We reached that conclusion because the descendants of Wilford Luce who had autosomal tests had cousin matches to the descendants of Stephen brother Ephraim Luce. This level of genetic matching would have been highly unusal if Wilford Luce had not been Ephraim’s nephew.
In 2020, we cinched it. A 2nd great grandson of Wilford Luce agreed to have a yDNA test at the 37-marker level. He matched exactly other male-line descendants of the immigrant Henry Luce. (See Luce Surname DNA Project at Family Tree DNA).
We can therefore say conclusively Wilford Luce was named for Mormon President Wilford Woodruff, but was not his son.
Revised March 10, 2020, July 11, 2025.