Matilda Sissieretta Joyner was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, to Jeremiah Malachi Joyner, an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and Henrietta Beale. By 1876 _her_ family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she began singing at an early age in her father's Pond Street Baptist Church. <sep>, Pronoun: her <sep>, A: Matilda Sissieretta Joyner <sep>, B: Henrietta Beale