Family Heritage :)

I love it when my girls want to talk about family history.

Tonight the question was, "Mom, who is Christian named after? How far back does it go again?"

So instead of reading books tonight, we read about our family history and this is how it goes!

1.  Johann Heinrich Christoff Ruwe was born in Germany on Oct. 28, 1828. He married Heinrietta Telbusher in 1859. She was born on October 6, 1841.

2.  These two had eight kids and the seventh one was William who was born in 1878.

William married Fredricke Gosker.

3.  These two had three kids and the third one was Christian E., born in 1908.

Chris married Helen Taylor Bradbury.

4.  These two had three kids and the first one was William (or otherwise known to us as Grandpa Bill)

William married Delores Rasmussen.

5.  These two had three kids and the first one was Chris.

Chris married LuAnn Kruger.

6.  These two had five kids and the first son was Matthew William, born in 1977.

Matthew married me (Charla Hasemann)

7.  We had three kids and the first son was Christian, born in 2010.


So to answer Megan's question, Christian is named after a whole bunch of people!! It looks like his name goes back to 1828!!! (and maybe even further)

4 generations of Ruwe men- William, Chris, Matthew William, Christian.
(I know we have taken more recent ones, but I don't remember when!)


It is funny that there is actually a Christian in the family tree, he was born 102 years before our Christian was born!

Side Note: When we were pregnant with Christian, Matt knew about this family heritage, but honestly, we both wanted to name him something different. One day at a family get-together, Grandpa Bill came up to him and said, "Now, you know you have to name him Chris, right?"  Matt didn't quite know what to say, so he started talking to his grandpa about the tradition and how far back it went. Once Matt realized it went back over 150 years, he decided that it was very important that we name him with the family name.

After we talked about it for a little bit, I agreed to it, but I made one stipulation- I will name him a version of "Chris" but it has to be his own name, so we settled on Christian. I do like that name, and honestly, we weren't having any luck at finding a boys name anyway! :)