Krahn is a Dutch-Prussian Mennonite name that occurred among the Mennonites of the Lower Rhine (Joost van den Vondel's mother was a Kraen) and is still familiar among the Dutch Mennonites. In the Danzig Mennonite Church record the name is first mentioned in 1689. Representatives of this family were also found in Tiegenhagen, Rosenort, and Heubuden. Franz Crous's study shows that there were only a few Mennonites by this name in Prussia after World War I.

Among the first six families who went from Danzig to the Ukraine in 1787 was a bachelor, Abraham Krahn, while others of this family name followed later. This name did not occur in the Molotschna settlement. A number of sons and daughters of Cornelius Krahn went to Manitoba during the migration of 1874, and later spread to Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Minnesota, Mexico, and Paraguay. Among those remaining in Russia, Isaak Georg Krahn, elder and leader of the Deyevka Mennonite congregation should be mentioned. In North America Cornelius P. Krahn was a minister in Reinland, Manitoba, while Peter B. Krahn, his brother, was a teacher and church worker near Altona, Manitoba. Cornelius Krahn was the editor of Mennonite Life and director of the Bethel College Historical Library, North Newton, Kansas.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 231. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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