Her mother Taki (also called Otaki) was a daughter of a merchant, however, she used the pseudonym of 'Sonogi' and visited Dejima (a small artificial island constructed in the Nagasaki bay under the national isolation policy during the Tokugawa Shogunate, where the Dutch Trading House was located), posing as a yujo to see Siebold, since only yujo (prostitutes) were allowed to enter Dejima at that time, and she got married to him.
母の瀧（お滝）は、商家の娘であったが、当時、出島へ入る事が出来たのは遊女たちだけだったので「其扇（そのぎ）」と名乗り、遊女を装って出島に出入りしてシーボルトと結婚した。