When Friedrich Heinrich Georg Westphal was born on 13 July 1862, in Hanover, Prussia, Germany, his father, Ernst Friedrich Westphal, was 32 and his mother, Dorothea Charlotte Wilhelmine Knocke, was 29. He married Karoline Bothe in September 1894. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 1 daughter. He died on 8 May 1950, in Hohenbostel, Linden, Hanover, Prussia, Germany, at the age of 87.