Meldrum and Stephens jointly propose that Lehi’s descendants were a small population interacting with a much larger indigenous population. They argue that intermarriage and the loss of inherited markers make detection of those descendants unlikely, while cultural and covenant relationships can persist without an identifiable genetic lineage.
- D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, “Who Are the Children of Lehi?,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12, no. 1 (2003): 38-51, 116.
- D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, Who Are the Children of Lehi? DNA and the Book of Mormon (Greg Kofford Books, 2007).
It is extremely unlikely that we will ever identify the children of Lehi using genetic techniques.