In 1797 Anna "Nanette" von Szent-Ivanyi was born in Freinsheim, a small town, already under French military occupation, south of Bad Dürkheim, which became part of the French First Republic the next year. , her father, was an aristocratic army officer of Hungarian provenance, serving in the Imperial Army: his presence in the Rhineland was a result of the French revolutionary wars. He was promoted to the rank of Major general in 1802. His wife, born Maria Anna Tillmann, who was Anna's mother, had been a widow when she had married Johann von Szent-Iványi. Maria Anna's first husband, Franz Joseph Stengel, who had died in 1794, had held a senior administrative post as a "Stiftsschaffner" of the Electoral Palatinate, based in Frankenthal. Anna von Szent-Ivanyi was therefore born the step half-sister of Josephine Stengel (1789–1834) on account of her mother's first marriage. The relationship was an important one because after she grew up Josephine Stengel married , the town's mayor, who later became a member of the of the after the region was handed over to Bavaria in 1816. All this meant, put simply, that Anna von Szent-Ivanyi was well connected from the moment of her birth, and the value of her family connections increased further through the on-going success of her step half brother-in-law, the businessman-politician .