Saint Ingrid was born in Skanninge, Sweden, sometime in the 1200s. Ingrid's father was was Elof with the family name Elofssonernas att, implying that her family belonged to not only nobility in Sweden, but the very elite. We also know she had two brothers, Anders and Johan - Johan would go on to be a knight of the Teutonic Order. Her niece Kristina was Birger Persson's first spouse - in a future article we'll write about Saint Bridget of Sweden, Birger's daughter.
Ingrid first married Sir Sigge, a nobleman, but he passed in 1271. After his death, and finding herself a widow, she and her sister Kristina joined a group that studied and were spiritually led under the Dominican friar Petrus de Dacia. In 1272, this group of women formed their own informal convent - the convent was formally recognized by Rome in 1281, a year before she passed. Officially, she was the first Dominican nun in Sweden. The cloister she founded was named Saint Martin's and was centered in the town of Skanninge.
Though large amounts of locals wrote to Rome describing miracles of her intercession, the first inquest held in Sweden in 1416 found her cause of canonization inconclusive. This initial investigation was triggered by her relative Bridget of Sweden's formal canonization in 1391. A second attempt was made at the Council of Costance, but no records remain of the formal canonizatoin. Pope Alexander VI agreed to a translation of her remains in 1507.
Her reamins were removed to Vadstena Abbey following the Swedish reformation. It was during this reformation that we belive the majority of her convent and relics were destroyed, though her skull was stolen at one point by Antoine de Beaulieu who believed it to be the skull of Saint Bridget of Sweden.