When Friederike Ernestine Merkel was born on 4 December 1805, in Niedernatzschung, Hirtstein, Mittlerer Erzgebirgskreis, Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, her father, Christian Heinrich Merkel, was 32 and her mother, Johanna Christiane Hertwich, was 28. She married Johann Heinrich Franz on 24 January 1825. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 3 daughters. She died on 11 April 1872, at the age of 66.