Where was Winston Churchill's mother born?

Jennie Spencer-Churchill was born Jennie Jerome on 9 January 1854 in Brooklyn, New York, the second of four daughters of financier Leonard Jerome and his wife Clarissa, daughter of Ambrose Hall, a landowner. Jerome's father was of Huguenot extraction.

Jennie Jerome was married on 15 April 1874, aged 20, at the British Embassy in Paris, to Lord Randolph Churchill and Lady Frances Anne Vane. The couple had met at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August 1873, having been introduced by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. Although they became engaged within three days of this initial meeting, the marriage was delayed for months while their parents argued over settlements. By this marriage, she was properly known as Lady Randolph Churchill and would have been addressed in conversation as Lady Randolph. The Churchills had two sons, shown in the picture: John (1880–1947) and Winston (1874–1965), the future prime minister.

Lord Randolph died in 1895, aged 45. Jennie married twice more; her final marriage was in 1918 to Montagu Porch (1877–1964) – three years younger than her son Winston.

In May 1921, while Montagu Porch was away in Africa, Jennie slipped while coming down a friend's staircase wearing new high-heeled shoes, breaking her ankle. Gangrene set in, and her left leg was amputated above the knee on 10 June. She died at her home at 8 Westbourne Street in London on 29 June, following a haemorrhage of an artery in her thigh. She was 67 years old.