The Pratt family is made up of the descendants of the Mormon pioneer brothers, Parley Parker Pratt and his brother Orson Pratt,[5] whose father was Jared Pratt (1769–1839).[6] It has many members in Utah and other parts of the U.S. There are many branches of the Pratt family, such as the Romney family (ofMitt Romney) and the Huntsman family.[7][8][9][10][11]
Pratt family | |
---|---|
Current region | Predominantly U.S. Intermountain West |
Members | Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, Sarah Pratt, George Romney, Jon Huntsman, Sr. |
Connected families | Huntsmans, Romneys, Smiths, Driggs Family |
Selected family members
Abbreviation | JPFA[27] |
---|---|
Formation | 1881 |
Type | Non-profit organization |
Headquarters | Salt Lake City, Utah |
Region served | Worldwide |
President | Robert J. Grow[28][29] |
Website | JPFA |
The Jared Pratt Family Association is a family association that conducts primary genealogical research and preserves genealogical and other historical information on the Pratt family surname, especially the descendants of Mormon Pioneer Orson Pratt or of his brothers.[30] The association takes its name from its founder, Orson Pratt's,[31] father, Jared Pratt.[32]
Orson Pratt was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a professor at University of Nauvoo in Illinois. After Orson trekked to what is now Utah, he served, among other offices, as the LDS Church Historian and Recorder 1874–1881 and also established the basis for the LDS Church's genealogical endeavors.[33][34][35] Pratt had begun in the early-1850s an extensive work on the descendants and family of William Pratt, the earliest ancestor of the Pratts to come to what is now the United States, in cooperation with Frederick W. Chapman, a Congregationalist minister. Chapman's book was published in 1864, and Orson Pratt and his family members used it to perform temple work on many family members, continuing the focus and leading to them organizing the family association 17 years later.[36]
The association was chartered by its founder, Orson Pratt (in statement appended to the meticulous family genealogical data he had collected) "to collect and register therein, from generation to generation, the dates of births, marriages, places of residence and deaths of all the descendants of my four brothers and myself. ... It is to be hoped that all our posterity of whatever branch or name will be sufficiently interested to preserve their genealogy to the latest generation."[37]
The association's president is Robert Grow, Ph.D.[38][39] and one of the association's historians is Robert Grow's son,[40][41] University of Southern Indiana professor Matthew Grow,[42][43] now with the Joseph Smith Papers Project.[44] According to the association, as of 2011 it possessed a computer database with 32,000 descendants of Jared Pratt and Charity Dickinson, believed to be half-complete.[45] The association has published a newsletter since 1965.[46][unreliable source?]
The Romney and Huntsman families — two intertwined clans that go back to the early days of Mormonism....
'Both Romney and Huntsman descend from Parley P. Pratt, one of the most storied early Mormon leaders,' said Joanna Brooks, a Mormon scholar.... 'Both have family and personal connections to the institutional hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And both enjoy an unusual degree of access to high-ranking church leaders,' she said.
One hundred and fifty years after the death of his ancestor, Parley Pratt's great-great-grandson Mitt Romney announced his bid for the Republican Party's nomination. ... He had served as governor of Massachusetts, and his father, George, as governor of Michigan.
...the youngest son of the most prominent Mormon in American politics — a seventh-generation direct descendant of one of the faith's founding 12 apostles—Mitt Romney....
Romney is...the scion of a family dynasty integral to the progress of an American-born faith....
...Matt Grow, one of our family historians."