Which birthday marked the first time Ada saw the family portrait of her father?

Ada Lovelace first saw the family portrait of her father on her 20th birthday. The portrait depicted Lord Byron, the celebrated poet and Ada's estranged father.

Ada was born in 1815 to Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke, later Lady Byron. Her parents separated shortly after her birth, and Byron left England. He died in Greece in 1824, when Ada was eight, so she never developed a normal relationship with him.

Lady Byron strongly shaped Ada's upbringing and was determined to distance her daughter from Byron's reputation and temperament. That family tension helps explain why a portrait of Ada's father was kept from her for so long. Seeing it at twenty was therefore a significant moment in her complicated relationship with her absent parent.

The detail is sometimes confused with the date of Byron's death or Ada's age when he died. Those events happened much earlier: Byron died when Ada was eight, whereas the portrait was not shown to her until she turned twenty.