Don Francisco de Paula Marin was a Spaniard who arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.) Among his several children, Marin had a daughter, Antoinette Francesa Marin, who was born on October 6, 1832 in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Her father died in 1837 and Antoinette was hānai to Dr Thomas Charles Byde and Grace Kamaikui Rooke; he was one of three physicians in Honolulu in the 1830s. (Emma, later Queen Emma, was also adopted by the Rookes.)

Antoinette later married Lyman Swan, but the Swan marriage was not a happy one. Antoinette was Queen Kapiʻolani’s Chambermaid for approximately 5-years. She later moved to Santa Cruz. When Princes David Kawānanakoa (Koa,) Edward Keliʻiahonui and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, nephews of Queen Kapiʻolani, were schooled at St Matthew’s Hall in San Mateo in 1885, they were placed under the careful eye of Antoinette.