Deng's ancestors can be traced back to Jiaying County (now renamed to Meixian), Guangdong, a prominent ancestral area for the Hakka people, and had settled in Sichuan for several generations. Deng's daughter Deng Rong wrote in the book "My father Deng Xiaoping" () that his ancestry was probably, but not definitely, Hakka. Sichuan was originally the origin of the Deng lineage until one of them was hired as an official in Guangdong during the Ming Dynasty, but when the Qing planned to increase the population in 1671, they moved back to Sichuan. Deng was born on 22 August 1904 in Sichuan.