The record states that when “the brother of Jared began to be old, and saw that he must soon go down to the grave,” he said unto Jared: “Let us gather together our people that we may number them” (Ether 6:19). The count disclosed that “the number of the sons and the daughters of the brother of Jared were twenty and two souls; and the number of sons and daughters of Jared were twelve, he having four sons” (Ether 6:20). This census, as reported by Moroni, did not include the number within the families of their children. Nor did the count include their friends and the families of these friends, who appear by that time to have separated themselves from the families of Jared and his brother (Ether 6:19-30).

The people appealed to Jared and the brother of Jared to “anoint one of their sons to be a king over them” (Ether 6:22). The brother of Jared responded grievously: “Surely this thing leadeth into captivity.” But “Jared said unto his brother: Suffer them that they may have a king. And therefore he said unto them: Choose ye out from among our sons a king, even whom ye will” (Ether 6:23-24). Each of the brother of Jared’s four sons, in turn, refused his inherited right to succeed his father as the leader of the two families, and the succession of kingship authority was transferred from the brother of Jared’s family to Jared’s family (Ether 6:19-30). Thus Orihah, one of Jared’s sons, was “anointed to be king over the people” after all the other sons of Jared renounced their right to the throne (Ether 6:27). And “Orihah did execute judgment upon the land in righteousness all his days” (Ether 7:1).

With the transferral of the proffered kingship from the family of the brother of Jared to Jared’s son Orihah, all rights to “the land of their first inheritance” (Ether 7:16), and the patriarchal and political authority, as well as the rights of record possession and record keeping were also transferred. As would be expected, the Jaredites had records which their “fathers brought across the great deep” (Ether 8:9). Moreover, the brother of Jared’s descendants forfeited these entitlements and responsibilities in perpetuity. As a result, the remainder of the Book of Ether is a record of Jared’s descendants, starting with Orihah, who took over the kingship responsibilities, down to the reign of the last king, Coriantumr (Ether 1:33; 6:27; 12:1). This transferral of kingship and patriarchal rights is crucial to an understanding of the Jaredite history and the consequences that follow to the end of the record. Note that Ether, the last record keeper, was a descendant of Jared and not a descendant of the brother of Jared who had led the people from the great tower to the promised land (Ether 1:6-33). The genealogy in the first chapter of the Book of Ether is Ether’s own, showing descent from Jared and king Orihah (with some breaks in the lineage for brevity) and not from the brother of Jared. Nearly all the people mentioned in the narrative of the Book of Ether—from Orihah’s ascension to the throne to those named in the last chapter of the record—are Jared’s descendants (Ether 6–15). And 27 of the 29 names listed in Ether’s genealogy, reappear in the last two-thirds of Moroni’s abridgment of Ether’s record as members of the kingship line of descent (Ether 6–15). And all recorded events and places in the new land—from wars to imprisonments to cities and oceans—are located in the area where it is apparent the descendants of Jared lived, because they are essentially the only people mentioned by name in the record. Thus the Book of Ether, for almost its entire history, is a record of Jared’s family. Only the account of the first few years leading up to their arrival in the new land includes the activities of the brother of Jared or any others. We would suspect that many of the descendants of the brother of Jared, after relinquishing the kingship, moved on and occupied other locations. We should note, however, that there would have been marriages between the descendants of the two brothers and the sons and daughters of their friends before this separation, and possibly for some time afterwards. It would not be unexpected, therefore, to have a “mighty man” obtain the kingdom who was “a descendant of the brother of Jared” (Ether 11:17-18).

The numerous families (at least 11) of the friends of Jared and his brother, like the descendants of the brother of Jared, “began to spread upon the face of the land, and to multiply and to till the earth; and they did wax strong in the land” (Ether 6:18). It would appear that all these families separated themselves from the descendants of Jared. They are never mentioned again in the Book of Ether, and yet the family of Jared is only one out of minimum of 13 first-generation families arriving in the promised land. As a consequence, we never learn the fate of the descendants of the brother of Jared nor the descendants of the many “friends.” Did they suffer a similar end as the descendants of Jared, with a complete annihilation and destruction of their civilizations at locations similar to hill Ramah? Maybe only a few families completely perished. We do not know, because we have no record of their history. We strongly suspect that many of them eventually scattered to distant locations throughout North and South America. Their descendants today could be among the millions of indigenous people now living in widespread locations on these two continents, most of whom have cultures, languages and DNA that do not seem to match the cultures, languages and DNA one might expect if they were descendants of the Lamanites and Nephites. It is our opinion that this is the case. The record of Ether certainly provides a credible background for such a scenario to unfold and evolve over time.

Moroni records that the “land of Moron, where the king dwelt, was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites” (Ether 7:5, 6, 17). We assume the land of Moron had a capital city because it was “where the king dwelt,” and the location of the throne, from where a long succession of Jaredite kings reigned (Ether 7:18; 9:5-6; 10:6; 14:6, 9). The land of Moron was the royal center of power from the beginning to the end of the Jaredite monarchal history. Kib, the grandson of Jared who came from the great tower, reigned in the land of Moron (Ether 7:1-6). Some 1,500 years later, following one of the last battles of the Jaredite people, the brother of Shared “came forth to the land of Moron, and placed himself [for a short time] upon the throne of Coriantumr” (Ether 14:5-6).