 Jenny von Westphalen was born in the small town of Salzwedel in Northern Germany to a fairly recently ennobled family that had been elevated into the petty nobility.Her civil servant father, Ludwig von Westphalen (1770–1842), was a former widower with four previous children, who served as "Regierungsrat" in Salzwedel and in Trier.Her paternal grandfather , himself the son of a Blankenburg postmaster, had been ennobled in 1764 as Edler von Westphalen by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick for his military services.