Anna Jacobs Datter Borrebye was born and grew up in Nakskov and Branderslev on Lolland and was the daughter of the clergyman Jacob Mortensen Borrebye, who as a caution against melancholy and sickness wrote and published Een liden Tieds-Fordriv, 1750, a type of encyclopaedia meant for the education of the peasants. Her father remarried after her mother’s death, and Anna Jacobs Daatter Borrebye, who was the second eldest of eight children, went into domestic service at the age of sixteen.
She found solace in Bible study and prayer, and it was during that period of her life that her religious poems came into being: Zions Sukke ved Babylons Floder, Eller Guds børns Trøste-Tanker i denne Verdens Modgang, 1741. They were reprinted in 1769, 1797, and 1851.
