According to the tradition established by Hammer-Purgstall (GOR, iii, 673), she was Polish, from Rogatin (Polish: Rohatyn) on the Gnilaya Lipa river, now in the Ukrainian SSR, then in the Little Russia of Poland, the daughter of a Greek Catholic papas; possibly her name was Aleksandra Lisowska. The area, an old Ruthenian settlement, was subjected to frequent Tatar raids; she may have been carried off on one of these and sold as a slave in Istanbul.