Yuan Keding was born in 1878 in Xiangcheng in modern Henan province during the Qing dynasty.

After the Xinhai Revolution, under the instruction of his father, Yuan became a close friend of Wang Jingwei.

Yuan refused to cooperate with the Imperial Japanese Army, as he did not wish to be seen as a traitor and his life became impoverished.

Thanks to the help of Zhang Shizhao, after 1949, Yuan became a fellow of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, and thus had a steady income.

His son, Yuan Jiarong (袁家融 1904—1996), studied in the United States and majored in geology at Columbia University.