Beginning of the Pratt Family story

 My father had done some extensive research into the Pratt Family Tree many years (decades) ago.  I remember him telling stories of how we were related to Charlemagne, and how excited he was about that.  After he passed away, my sister continued his research on Ancestry.  I hadn't thought about it much until recently when I took a DNA test on Ancestry and bought a membership to read about all the interesting people my father and sister had talked about all those years ago.

As I've been going up and down the family tree I have run into some very interesting people and stories, and as I've shared them with my siblings I thought it might be a good idea to write some of this down somewhere other than Ancestry, so that other family members can learn about our rich history.

There is a wealth of information on Ancestry, so I'll begin with one branch of the tree that I found to be particularly interesting as it points to Scottish and English royalty.

This branch starts on the Pratt side with Albert and Enga (Ingraham) Pratt.  The families that make up this marriage are Pratt, McCullough, Ingraham, and Otterson. 

Now what is extremely interesting to me is that the Pratt, McCullough and Ingraham line can all be traced back to the Pilgrim/Puritan times (mid 1600s) in Massachusetts.  But I will save that story for another post.  Here, I am going to trace up the McCullough line as that was the line my father initially thought went all the way up to Charlemagne.  He wasn't wrong about that from what I can tell, but it was a different branch of this McCullough line that leads to him.

If you go 3 more generations up the McCullough line you get to the marriage of Alexander and Rachel Cary.  While the McCullough lineage is impressive in its own right, the Cary line is the one that extends to royalty.

The Cary family is a very old English aristocratic family with a rich history.  According to that Wikipedia post, the earliest known ancestor of the family is Sir Adam de Kari in 1198. He was born in Kari (Cary) Castle, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. 

As you go further up the Cary branch, you reach Francis Cary and his father, John Cary.  Francis married Hannah Lydia Brett, and the Brett branch is the one my father believed went to Charlemagne.  As I went up that branch I ran into timeline issues with a few members and could not confirm this to be true.  So I went further up the Cary branch instead starting with John.

John Cary was born in England and emigrated to America in 1634 where he settled near Duxbury, MA, which is right next to Plymouth. I've read a page from "North America Family Histories 1500-2000" that says he was on the muster role of Capt Myles Standish in 1643.

He was one of the original settlers and proprietors of Bridgewater, MA in 1645 and was also apparently the first Teacher of Latin in the Plymouth Colony.  It goes without saying that John Cary was a very important person in American history.  It didn't surprise me at all once I continued up the Cary branch.

Initially I could not find much information beyond John and Francis Cary, until I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit from the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

If you read this closely, you'll see the John Cary mentioned above, married to Elizabeth Godfrey.  If you continue reading up the line you'll see a Sir Robert Cary married to a Margaret Courtney --

and up the Courtney line we get to a Hugh de Courtenay who was married to Margaret de Bohun, daughter of Elizabeth Plantagenet, who is the daughter of King Edward I.

Now of course if we are descendants of Edward I, that means we are descendants of his father Henry III and grandfather John, whom I remember mostly from the Robin Hood stories as not a great person.  The House of Plantagenet is filled with amazing people, both good and bad, who had a large impact on human history.  If you are a fan of English history at all (or just like to watch shows like The Tudors), you'll find this part of our family's history as interesting as I do.

So there it is, a direct line up the McCullough-Cary-Courtney branch to English royalty.  But wait, there's more!  If you go back to that page from the Alabama Dept of Archives and History, you'll see that Elizabeth Plantagenet is only about halfway up the page.  If you follow her husband Humphrey de Brohun's branch you get to even more interesting people. But I will save that story for the next post.