Home Question Box Were either of Mary’s parents alive when Jesus was born? By Ginny Kubitz Moyer November 26, 2012 We don’t know when exactly Mary’s parents (St. Joachim and St. Anne) died. The Gospels don’t give us any information about them, so what we know comes from tradition and from apocryphal writings such as the Protoevangelium of James, written around A.D. 150. Even that information is limited, though, so we don’t know for certain when Mary’s parents died, or whether they would have been alive to see their grandson in person.