There is little in Anne Hunter's background to suggest either musical or poetical ability, or that she would have received much in the way of encouragement. She was the daughter of an impoverished army surgeon and, according to one account, had little or no schooling before the age of. Yet she could not only write poetry, but compose verses that scanned easily into existing tunes, and then have the courage to submit them for publication. One can only guess that, as was common for girls in the eighteenth century, she had been educated at home by her mother, and well educated at that; although as we shall see she may also have attended school, or finishing school, in her late teens or early twenties.

Anne's father, Robert Home, is usually, but probably incorrectly, referred to as Robert Boyne Home of Greenlaw in the Scottish border county of Berwickshire. He was indeed born at Greenlaw in 1713 in the castle inherited by his father William Home. However in 1729 on the death of William's wife Anne, née Purves of Purves Hall, the castle ceased to be occupied as a manor house and on 3 March 1738 William Home renounced Greenlaw in favour of the Earl of Marchmont, moving instead to Sharplaw in neighbouring Roxburghshire, where he died in 1743.

As members of the extended family of Homes/Humes of Berwickshire which included the earls of Marchmont, the impoverished Homes had aristocratic connections. It seems likely that Robert had been expected to retrieve the family fortunes by marrying a relative, but instead in about 1741 he married Mary Hutchinson, probably in Ireland. ‘By contracting an early marriage, in which affection overcame more prudential considerations, both […] gave offence to their relations, who refused to render them pecuniary assistance’. Possibly English by birth, very little is known about Mary, except that her father was Colonel Alexander Hutchinson. He was probably the man appointed Lieutenant Colonel of Colonel Bragg's Regiment of Foot in February 1730, a post in which he served in Ireland until retiring, or perhaps dying, in 1740. Colonel Hutchinson appears to have had literary tastes, for he was a subscriber to a translation of Horace's Epistles, published in Dublin in 1731. Perhaps this scholarly inclination was passed on to his daughter and granddaughter.