梁冀
Deng Mengnü's father Deng Xiang (鄧香) was a low level official in the imperial administration. (It is not clear under which emperor(s) he served.) He was a cousin of Empress Deng Sui and therefore a grandson of the statesman Deng Yu. Deng Mengnü's mother was named Xuan (宣). Deng Xiang died early, and after he did, Lady Xuan remarried Liang Ji (梁紀—note different character than the Liang Ji referenced below), the uncle of Sun Shou (孫壽), the wife of the powerful official Liang Ji (梁冀), who dominated the political scene throughout the reigns of Emperor Huan and his two predecessors, Emperors Chong and Zhi, as the brother of the regent Empress Dowager Liang.