Her grandfather, the parisian merchant Henri Colomb († 1719), first emigrated to Copenhagen after the lifting of the Edict of Nantes (1685), where he became a trimmer at the royal court.

This move was caused by his father-in-law, the goldsmith Jean-Henri de Moor († 1722) from Wageningen in the province of Gelderland, himself director of the factory from 1696 to 1711.

[3] On her mother's side, Marie-Elisabeth came from the Durham de Grange family of Prussian civil servants of Scottish origin.

[4][3] In 1760, Marie-Elisabeth Colomb married Friedrich Ernst von Holwede (March 12, 1723—† January 26, 1765), baron, hereditary and lord of Tegel, Ringenwalde and Crummecavel.

Two children were born from this marriage, a daughter who died at an early age,[5] and a son, Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Ferdinand von Holwede (1762-1817), who joined the Berlin cuirassier regiment, men-at-arms, like Rittmeister.

He died in 1765 and left his widow the hereditary lease of Tegel Castle near Berlin and the Ringenwalde estate with the Crummecavel farm in Neumark (district of Soldin, today Poland).

One of Marie-Elisabeth von Humboldt's greatest achievements was the consistent planning and implementation of her sons' education from a spiritual and moral perspective.

[13] She was buried on the Falkenberg estate, in the family cemetery, alongside her husband and a daughter from her first marriage, who had died prematurely.