Ada Lovelace was born in London on December 10, 1815, under the name Augusta Ada Byron. Her father was the famous poet Lord Byron, and her mother was Anne Isabella Byron.

When Ada was five weeks old, her mother left Lord Byron because of his incessant drinking and womanizing. On the morning of January 16, Lady Byron and her infant daughter hastily made their way to Lady Byron’s parents’ house. A few months later, in April, Lord Byron left England for good; Ada and her mother would never see him again.

In 1819, Ada’s mother wrote a poem called “The Unnatural Mother.” In it, she described her feelings of guilt, shame, and resentment that she felt when she looked at her daughter Ada. She could not help but associate Ada with her troublesome marriage to Lord Byron. As Lady Byron’s health deteriorated, Ada was often left in the care of her grandmother Judith. She was also assigned a governess who taught her, amongst other things, history, literature, languages, geography, music, sewing, and mathematics.

Aged 36, Lord Byron died far away from home as a result of his partaking in the Greek War of Independence.

Ada wrote her first book in 1828 when she was only 12 years old. She had always been fascinated by the dynamics of flight, and in her book called Flyology, she examined this topic in detail.

Ada was frequently sick and bedridden as a child. A severe bout of measles caused her to suffer from a form of paralysis, and by the time she was in her early teens, she could often be seen walking around on crutches.

By 1832, Ada has recovered enough to be able to live a more active life which involved horse riding and music lessons. She also received lessons in shorthand from a young tutor, with whom she soon fell in love. Her mother did not approve of the relationship, and as a result, Ada ran away to the home of her tutor and his parents. She was, however, immediately returned to her mother’s care.

In June of 1833, Ada was introduced to Charles Babbage, a man who would later be considered a founding father of the computer. Babbage showed Ada his so-called Difference Engine, a machine that attempted to perform simple calculations. Ada was intrigued by the contraption and immediately started thinking of all the possibilities such a machine might entail.

At age 19, Ada married William King.

Ada and William welcomed their first child, a son named Byron, into the world on May 12, 1836.

Byron was joined by a baby sister in the fall of 1837. Anne would later become the co-founder, together with her husband Wilfrid Blunt, of the famous Crabbet Arabian Stud.

When William King was made the Earl of Lovelace in 1838, Ada became the Countess of Lovelace, thereby giving her the name by which she would become famous.

In July 1839, Ada’s third and final child, a boy named Ralph Gordon, was born.

At age 25, Ada wanted to get back into the scientific world. In 1841, she was tasked with translating a lecture performed by Charles Babbage into English. The lecture was about Babbage’s new Analytical Engine, which was based on his previous work on the Difference Engine.

In 1843, Ada finished her work on the translation of Babbage’s lecture as well as her detailed notes on the topic, which ended up being much longer and more important than the translation itself. Her notes were categorized from A to G, the most famous of which was called Note G. Nowadays, the Analytical Engine is seen as an early model of a computer while Ada’s notes describe, for the first time, a computer and its software. This work caused many to accredit Ada Lovelace with the prestigious title of the world’s first computer programmer.

In the mid-1840s, Ada was often sick and bedridden, causing her doctor to prescribe her with a common medicine of the time called laudanum. Laudanum consisted of a mix of alcohol and opium, and Ada soon became addicted to this potent drug. During these troublesome years, she also took up a horse gambling habit.

Ada’s son Byron decided at the tender age 12 to leave the safety of home and set out on a journey of a lifetime. He eventually sailed all the way to Tasmania, Chile, and California.

With the help of Charles Babbage, Ada came up with a system that was meant to predict gambling odds on horse races. This failed miserably, causing Ada to end up with huge debts. During the last few years of her life, Ada is said to have pawned the family jewels twice to pay for her debts.

At age 35, Ada was diagnosed with uterine cancer. By this time, she was bedridden and extremely ill.

In late 1852, Ada passed away.