Catharina van Delden grew up in the Dutch East Indies; prior to the Japanese occupation during World War II she lived in Yogyakarta.
[1] In 1946 or 1947 she married Johan Willem Blankenberg (born 26 July 1907 in Muntok).
Her husband was killed on 14 November 1949 in Brebes (Java) during an attack on his place of work.
[2] Blankenberg-Van Delden read Egyptology at Leiden University with Adolf Klasens starting from 1963.
Blankenberg-Van Delden's designation of commemorative scarabs has become standard in Egyptology: category (indicated by a letter) and a sequence number, allowing for continuous numbering of newly found scarabs.