When Kirsten Pedersdatter was born about 1767, in Røros, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, her father, Peder Lorentzen Kjelsberg, was 27 and her mother, Ingeborg Pedersdatter Opdal, was 36. She had at least 1 son and 3 daughters with Christen Jakobsen Ryen. She died after 1801, at the age of 35.