Where did the Pratts and Ingrahams come from?

It really amazes me to think about all of the events that had to take place in order for you and I to be alive today. I mean, the probability that all of the events needed in order for the people in the tree above me to meet and have babies is so miniscule that is blows my mind.  I cannot mathematically process this.

So it got me to wonder how all of our ancestors met and where each branch came from.  I'm still going down many rabbit holes but one thing stuck out to me in particular.

The story I remember being passed down to me is that my grandparents, Albert Pratt and Enga Ingraham, met in Nebraska while my grandfather was working as a telephone pole lineman.  Albert was from Ohio, but Enga was born in Colorado and moved to Nebraska at a young age.  Their marriage certificate says they were married in Iowa.

So where did the two branches come from in order for them to meet in Nebraska? Well, surprisingly enough their families came from the same place, at least once they got to America.

The Ingraham line in America started with Richard Ingraham who married Elizabeth Wignall.  From what I have read, it appears they were both born in England and emigrated to America around 1630 and settled in Rehoboth, MA.  It is believed that Richard was son to Sir Arthur Ingram.  He was a proprietor and a surveyor of highways, and he even contributed to a fund to support Harvard College in 1673. This post is a really good summary of this family.  They had a son names Jarrett Ingraham whom our family is descended from.  The family stayed in Massachusetts for several generations before moving to Connecticut, New York, and then Wisconsin/Minnesota in the mid 1800s. It was Enga's father Jay W. Ingraham who had moved from Minnesota to Colorado and Nebraska.

Fun (?) fact: Laura Ingraham's family lineage can be traced back to the very same Richard Ingraham/Elizabeth Wignall. Isn't that crazy?  Not sure how I feel about that, but it's true! Her line comes from Henry Ingraham, brother of Jarrett.



The Pratt line in America also started in America in the 1630s in or around Framingham or Watertown, Massachusetts when Thomas Pratt emigrated and married Avis Prime.  The actual date is not certain but they had a son, Thomas Pratt, who was born in Framingham in 1636.  From what I can tell, this family stayed in Massachusets until the 1700s when they moved to Vermont, and then in the 1800s moved to Ontario and finally to Ohio when Irvin C. Pratt was born in 1857.

Now I am still researching this particular branch because there are a lot of similar names and I see some discrepancies on Ancestry on the parents of a particular Dr. Silas Pratt who married a Hannah Parker.  My tree has his father as Ephraim Pratt, but I have seen others list the father as Ebenezer Pratt or even Henry Pratt.  There is a lot of information out there and it's hard to tell what's accurate and what's not. But this is what I have so far.



In any event, I find it amazing that these two families started out around the same time and place in America in Massachusetts the 1630s, and somehow 9 generations later they meet in Nebraska!





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