What is the Jared Pratt Family Association?

The Jared Pratt Family Association, founded in 1881, is one of the oldest family history organizations in the nation. Jared Pratt (1769-1839) was the father of one daughter and five sons–Anson, William, Parley, Orson and Nelson–four of whom joined the early Mormon Church. One of these sons, Orson Pratt, founded the association in order to engage in ancestral genealogy research, as well as to keep track of the Pratt descendants. He gave this charge to the family:

“This record is written, to be handed down to future generations, not only to preserve the genealogy of my forefathers, but 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.”

On the website, you will find hundreds of photos, stories, newspaper articles, journals, discourses and more from our Pratt ancestors. To easily explore, click “Histories” from the menu at the top and select the Pratt brother (Anson, William, Parley, Orson or Nelson) which will show a list of their wives and children. By selecting one of these individuals, you will see the available photos and histories we have for each individual. Alternatively, you can learn more about the ancestors of Jared and Charity Pratt.

Not sure where to start? Explore some of the ‘random pages’ to the right that are examples of what is available across the website for these ancestors.

Parley P. Pratt biography

The first scholarly biography of Parley P. Pratt is now available from Oxford University Press—titled Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism by Terryl Givens and Matthew J. Grow, one of our family historians.