When Cathrine Wilhelmine Langenkamp was born in 1815, in Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany, her father, Johann Heinrich Langenkamp, was 29 and her mother, Anne Catherine Stroekers, was 17. She married Wilhelm Heinrich Friedrich Thies on 23 May 1841, in Versmold, Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 4 daughters. She died on 16 May 1864, in Randolph, Illinois, United States, at the age of 49, and was buried in Bremen, Randolph, Illinois, United States.