Gail B. Ingram was born in Tokyo, Japan, along with her fraternal twin sister. Her late father met and married her mother in Japan where he was stationed with the U.S. Army. She and her twin have a younger sister and brother.

She graduated in 1975 as the valedictorian of Lower Richland High School in Columbia. At the University of South Carolina, she graduated magna cum laude in 1978 with a BA in history. She was also an exchange student at Warwick University in England from 1977-1978. She received her MAT in history at USC in 1980. During her career as a high school history teacher, she completed 30 hours above her master’s in social studies and she earned the prestigious National Board Certification in social studies and history in 2004.

Her entire 34-year teaching career was spent at Cheraw High School where her students participated in National History Day (NHD), a year-long academic program focused on historical research for 6th  to 12th- grade students. Her students won numerous state and national awards. As a teacher, she won both national teaching awards given by NHD in 2001 and 2010. She was also selected to be in the first group of NHD Normandy Scholars in 2011. In July 2012, her article about the NHD program was published in the Organization of American Historians’ Magazine of History.

As a teacher, she organized and led 20 tours to Europe and Asia for students, their parents and other adults. She earned several international teaching fellowships, including three Fulbright awards to travel and study in Japan, Thailand/Vietnam and India, and similar awards to South Korea and Germany. She worked as a presenter at 18 conventions organized by EF Educational Tours in Beijing, Berlin, Paris and Rome and as a writer for the company’s travel blog, “Following the Equator,” for several years.

She served as “Teacher of the Year” for her school and the school district in 1996. The  DAR named her as the “Outstanding Teacher of American History” for SC in 1997.The SC House of Representatives passed a concurrent resolution (H. 5218) honoring her in 2002 and the USC Honors College named her as a “Distinguished Honors Alumnus” in 2003.  In 2014, she retired on June 6, won the Democratic primary on June 10, and won the general election for Chesterfield County Probate Judge on November 4.

She has been married to Miller S. Ingram, Jr., an attorney, since 1980, and they have two children. Their daughter, Ruth, lives in Asheville, NC, and works at Warren Wilson College with the Swannanoa Gathering program and their son, Mark, lives in Cheraw, and practices law with his father in the Ingram Law Firm. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Cheraw where she has served as a deacon and the Moderator of the Diaconate and as an elder and the Clerk of Session. She currently serves as the head of the personnel committee. From 1987 to 2014, she served as a member of the Chesterfield County Library Board and was the chairman since 2001. As a breast cancer survivor, she is involved with Relay for Life in Chesterfield County and the American Cancer Society. She is a member of the Chesterfield Service Club and she is the moderator of a book club in Cheraw.