According to a popular story, Boone returned home after a long absence to find Rebecca had given birth to a daughter. Rebecca confessed she had thought Daniel was dead, and that Boone’s brother had fathered the child. Boone did not blame Rebecca, and raised the girl as his own child. Boone's early biographers knew the story but did not publish it. Modern biographers regard the tale as possibly folklore, since the identity of the brother and the daughter vary in different versions of the tale.