Phoebe Janeway was the younger sister of Kathryn Janeway, born four years after Kathryn, in 2339. When she was young, she had curly hair, something her elder sister envied. She also shared their father's clear gray eyes. When she was five years old, their father took Kathryn to the Mars Colony – Phoebe wanted to go too, but was too young. She was allowed to play with some of Kathryn's PADDs instead. When she was eight, she played a prank on Kathryn by putting a long coil of polymer into a cylinder of sun protector before one of Kathryn's tennis matches.