Daughter of James Jonsson "Johnson" and Johanna Nilsdotter "Nilsson". Her name at birth was Kjersti Jonsson.

In May 1857, she traveled with her family (mother, father, two younger sisters, and baby brother) from Sweden to Denmark, and on May 20, 1857 her family sailed from Copenhagen, arriving on May 24, 1857 at Liverpool, England. They left Liverpool on May 30, 1857 on the ship Tuscarora, a ship full of Mormon immigrants. They arrived at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1857, and there they were overwhelmed by the events they witnessed on July 4, 1857. From Philadelphia, they traveled to the end of the railroad line, at Burlington, Iowa, where they found work to support themselves and to pay for the remainder of their travel to the Utah Territory. While in Iowa, her baby brother died. They made their way to Nebraska, to join the James Brown Company (about 387 people total) which left Florence, Nebraska on June 13, 1859. They walked 1100 miles across the plains, arriving at Salt Lake City on August 29, 1859.

The family was assigned to live at Fort Ephraim, Sanpete county, which was a Danish settlement. This did not work out for the family, particularly when the local bishop announced he would take their homestead from them to give to his own brother-in-law. The family left the Mormon Church.

While they were in Utah, two more baby brothers were born, but only one survived infancy. The family moved to Moroni, Sanpete county.

Christena married James Yorgason as the first of his eight wives. They eloped on December 8, 1867, while her family was preparing to leave Utah to travel east and return to Sweden.

The Johnson family delayed their departure from the Utah Territory after the elopement of their eldest daughter, but they did finally move east and settled in Omaha, Nebraska.

Her parents divorced, and her father returned to Santaquin county, where he remarried. Her mother, her two sisters, and her brother lived in Omaha for the rest of their lives.

Christena bore nine children with her husband James. Their fourth child died as a toddler. Their fifth child died from typhoid as a teenager, within weeks after leaving home to find work in a nearby town. Their youngest child died as an infant, after Christena and her family were harassed by federal marshalls who were seeking Christena's husband James, hoping to incarcerate him for polygamy.

Shortly after the death of his youngest child with Christena, James moved from Utah to California. While in California, he assumed his first wife's maiden name, and was known as James Y. Johnson.

Christena refused to leave the family home to travel to California, and so she and her children remained in Utah.

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published in the Mt. Pleasant Pyramid on September 20, 1912:

Mrs. Christena Yorgason died suddenly
Sunday night. She had not
been in very good health for a year,
but was not confined to her bed.
She was feeling fairly well during
the summer, but the final summons
came. Funeral services have not
been arranged yet, as relatives are
expected from Wyoming and Omaha.

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Christena's six adult children survived her, and lived long and productive lives as ranchers in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho:
--Mary Caroline Johanna Yorgason Henrie
--James Sanders Yorgason
--Elinor Cecelia Yorgason Morgan
--Joseph Soren Adam Yorgason
--Wilford Moroni Yorgason
--Ernest Alonzo Yorgason

Christena Yorgason was survived by 33 grandchildren.

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Christena's husband James outlived Christena by a few years, during which time he remarried, then was financially ruined when a flash-flood destroyed his highly successful Los Angeles pigeon ranch. Finally, James suffered a lingering death from the complications of adult-onset diabetes. A foot infection, said to have started when he stepped on a nail, resulted in gangrene and sepsis. His then-wife Gertrude Colby Kimmell Wing Johnson arranged to bring James back to Fountain Green, Utah, which was accomplished by one of James' Wyoming-based sons.