52W Mark IV – Week 18: Card K5 Christina Ran

Christina Ran (1858-1924)

My Gx2 Grandmother Christina Ran was born on February 13, 1858, in Den Helder, Noord Holland. She was the third of seven children and third of five daughters born to Cornelis Ran and Elisabeth de Waard.

Christina’s birth recorded in the Den Helder civil register.

Like many Dutch parents of the time, Cornelis and Elisabeth followed the traditional naming conventions for their children. With their third daughter, they had a bit more freedom in naming Christina. I don’t know what inspired the name, I haven’t found any previous Christinas earlier in her tree. It also doesn’t seem to be a particularly common name over the last 200 years. With the family being Catholic, maybe it was inspired by Saint Christina the Astonishing, who lived in what is now Limburg Province, Belgium. Or, like my mother will often suggest, “maybe they just liked the name.”

From the Corpus of Given Names in the Netherlands for the name “Christina”

Christina’s daughter, Elizabeth Bakker, my great grandmother, followed the traditional naming custom. Thus my grandmother, Christina Komen, is her grandmother’s namesake.

On September 29, 1881, Christina married Cornelis Jan Bakker in Den Helder. The couple had eleven children together. While they raised their large family in the same town where she was born, married, and died, eight of Christina’s children moved to other cities or towns after leaving home. Some remained close by, still in Noord Holland; others moved further afield, to the provinces of Utrecht and Zuid Holland.

The two items on the left, reporting Cornelis and Christina’s wedding, appeared on page two of the Nieuws- En Advertentiebode voor Den Helder on September 30, 1881. The item on the right commemorates the celebration of Cornelis and Christina’s 25th wedding anniverary, on page two of the September 22, 1906 edition of the Nieuws- En Advertentiebode voor Den Helder,

Christina died on November 26, 1924, at the age of 66. She was buried at Begraafplaats Huisduinen in Den Helder.

2 thoughts on “52W Mark IV – Week 18: Card K5 Christina Ran”

  1. I am surprised by the repetition of names in my family ancestors! Elizabeth, Katharine and Christine/a are big ones. A recent one was Josephine who named her daughter Josephine. Also the first Josephine named another daughter Stephanie (perhaps after her sister in law?), who started using her middle name Mildred and then she named her daughter Mildred! It was hard to write that story and make known which person I was talking about!

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment