1810—1830.

Interesting as it is, in beginning a musical biography, to trace the artistic faculty back through generations of highly-gifted ancestors, and to establish the position that genius, like insanity, is hereditary, there are many cases where it is impossible to do this. In some instances, as notably in that of the Bach family, musical ability was a second nature to every scion of the house, so that to be a Bach was to be a musician. Theirs was an exceptional, not to say unique, case in the history of music. It is not uncommon to find, that among the progenitors of a composer there have been individuals who had a liking for music, or even a more decided taste for it. In the Schumann family however, no musical ancestor has been discovered by any of his biographers, and we may take it for granted that no such existed.

The composer's father, Friedrich August Gottlob Schumann (born 1773), was the son of a clergyman in Saxony, Friedrich Grottlob Schumann by name, who designed for his son a commercial career.