Carmen Russell Salsbury was born on 21 July, 1898, in the County of Lennox and Addington, Ontario, Canada. He was the youngest child of the two daughters and three sons of John Albert Salsbury, a farmer. He was educated in a one room country schoolhouse for four years and then graduated with honours

Born in Pembroke Square, Kensington, the only son of Dr John Doran (*Dict. Nat. Biog.*) by his marriage with Emma, daughter of Captain Gilbert, RN, and was the grandson of John Doran, of Drogheda. John Doran, Alban Doran's father, lived in the very centre of Victorian literary and artist society. He