When Giovanni Battista Boff was born on 4 September 1839, in Seren, Belluno, Veneto, Italy, his father, Osvaldo Bof, was 34 and his mother, Anna Maria Rech, was 31. He married Jovana Andrigueta on 20 November 1861, in Seren, Belluno, Veneto, Italy. They were the parents of at least 1 son. He immigrated to Caxias do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1883. He died before 1935, in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, at the age of 94, and was buried in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.