An inscription in Hester's manuscript—"Made when my spirits were sunk very low with sickness and sorrow. may 1667. I being seventy one years old" (fol. 88v)—suggests that she was born in 1595; however, given the title of her poem "Universall dissolution, made when I was with Child of my 15th Child \my sonne John/ I being as every one thought in a Consumption 1648" (fol. 10v), a birth year of 1595 would have made her fifty-three years old at the birth of her youngest child. Another alternative piece of evidence is given in Hester's manuscript when she mourns the Irish Rebellion, writing that she remembers "sweete Hibernie where I first had life" (fol. 12v). Her family lived in Ireland from December 1604 to October 1608, due to her father taking up the position of Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland. This suggests Hester was born in or around Dublin during this time. Another poem, titled "Made when I was sick 1647", provides further confirmation of this alternative date, when Hester laments her "forty years acquaintance" with her body. This would place her birth year at 1607.