The Proeger Family · Generation 7 — Earl's earliest known

Nancy Williams

Probable mother of Lydia Williams · born about 1802

Nancy Williams

Probable

Probable mother of Lydia Williams · born about 1802

Born
about 1802
Parents
James Wilder & Nancy Hays
Sources
5

Research status

Research status: PROBABLE — added 24 September 2026 and entered in the family tree the same day, labelled probable there too; one 1850 census sheet, Owsley County, Kentucky S173, dwelling 281, lists Moses Williams, 50, farmer, real estate $750, born Tennessee, and Nancy, 48, with Lydia (born about 1835, Tennessee) in the household; relationships are not stated. The 1859 Moses Williams death lead was refuted — that record is a child of James and Lorinda Williams — and the names other users' trees give this couple are not used

Evidence: The 1850 Owsley County census: Moses, 50, and Nancy, 48, with Lydia; in 1870 Nancy, 67, with Moses in Jackson County, Kentucky; in 1880 a widowed Nanci Williams, 78, with Sam and Nancy Evans in Madison County, Arkansas. Weak or missing: No census states her relationship to Lydia, her maiden name Wilder rests on a compiled family history alone, and the 1880 match rests on the Evans family, not on her own details. Not yet confirmed. Know more? Confirm or correct this →

Life in the order the records give it

Birth1802
Born about 1802, Tennessee. No record read gives her maiden name; a compiled Wilder family history makes her Nancy Wilder (below)
Census1870
🆕 In 1870 she and Moses were in McKee Precinct, Jackson County, Kentucky: Nancy, 67, keeping house, born Tennessee S620. added 26 September 2026.
Census1880
🆕 In June 1880 a Nanci Williams, 78, widowed, born Tennessee, was living in Boston Township, Madison County, Arkansas, as the mother-in-law in the home of Sam Evans, 43, and his wife Nancy, 37, born Tennessee S635. A Samuel and Nancy Ann Evans lived next door to Moses and Nancy in 1870 S620, and the Evanses' two eldest children were born in Kentucky. Probable confirm or correct → This is probably her; if so, Nancy Ann Evans was her daughter and Moses had died by 1880. Sam's age is twelve years on from 1870, not ten, so the match rests mainly on Nancy Ann and the children's birthplaces. added 26 September 2026.

Family parents, marriages, children, siblings

Parents1802
🆕 Her parents: James Wilder and Nancy Hays Probable confirm or correct →. W. M. Wilder's typescript family history, p. 571, lists “Nancy Wilder (dau of James & Nancy Hays Wilder) b in Tenn. abt 1802 d in Madison Co., Ark. after 1878, m Moses Williams” S863, which fits her 1850 and 1880 census entries. Accepted by Earl as probable; what is weak: a compiled history is the only source. added 28 September 2026.
Marriage1819
🆕 Her marriage, probably: the full page of W. M. Wilder's typescript says she and Moses Williams married on 15 February 1819 in Hawkins County, Tennessee, and names a son, Sampson Williams, born in Hawkins County about 1825 Probable confirm or correct → S993. Evidence: the same entry that names her parents S863. Weak: it is a compiled family history by one author, not a marriage register, and no register has been read. Know more? Use “Add to this record”. added 29 September 2026

Open questions what is probable, weak or missing — confirm or correct it

Probable
Probable mother of Lydia Williams, and so grandmother of William Anderson Bowles; wife of Moses Williams

In the record Generation 7 — Earl's earliest known

Nancy Williams · Sources

Citations

Sources cited on this card

5 of the record's sources are cited here. The numbering is the record's own; the full list, with where else each is cited, is at Sources.

  1. S1731850 U.S. Federal Census — Moses Williams household, County of Owsley, State of Kentucky. Ancestry collection 8054, record 17453010, image 4192506_00389. SCHEDULE I.—Free Inhabitants, enumerated on the 4th day of Sept 1850 by Luther Brawner, Ass't Marshal; dwelling and family 281/281, lines 18–25. Read from the image at full resolution, 22 September 2026. Moses Williams, 50, Farmer, real estate $750, born TENNESSEE, cannot read or write; Nancy Williams, 48, born Tennessee, cannot read or write; Nathan 21, Laborer; a son of 18 whose given name has faded off the page; Lydia, 15, born TENNESSEE; George 10; Nancy 8, born Tennessee; Abraham, 5, born KENTUCKY. 🔑 A new generation on a line that had none — published as a candidate, PROBABLE since 24 September 2026. The Williams side stops at Lydia on this record; this sheet puts her, at fifteen, in the household of Moses and Nancy Williams in the county she marries in six years later [S143], and there is no second Lydia Williams on the page. ⚠ The hedge is stated plainly: an 1850 schedule states no relationship whatever. Ancestry's own word is inferred. This is the same evidentiary shape as James and Elizabeth Brock [S167] [S169] and it is weaker — that is a two-census chain, this is one sheet. It is published as a CANDIDATE, not probable, not confirmed, and nothing has been written to the tree. 🔑 Age 15 contains the tree's 30 May 1835 by two days. Reference day 1 June 1850; 15 requires a birth between 2 June 1834 and 1 June 1835. The tightest corroboration the date has; the day itself is still unattested by any document. 🔑 The family left Tennessee between c.1842 and c.1845 — Nancy, 8, born Tennessee; Abraham, 5, born Kentucky. Lydia was a child of about seven to ten when they moved. 🔑 Lydia's birthplace is Tennessee, in her own household, at fifteen — the first of three contemporaneous records to say so, with the 1856 bride's column [S143] and the 1860 Travellers Rest sheet [S171]. ⚠ Both parents illiterate (col. 13 ticked). ⚠ Line 21's given name is unread. Ancestry indexes James, 18; the ink is no longer on the page, and he is recorded here as unread, not as James. ⚠ The $750 leads with a 7 in this hand; $450 cannot be wholly excluded. ⚠ What would settle the parentage is the 1840 schedule with the same household, an Owsley County marriage bond for Lydia in 1856 naming a father's consent, or a probate for Moses Williams. None has been pulled.
  2. S6201870 U.S. census — McKee Precinct 1, Jackson County, Kentucky, p. 6. Ancestry record 18553557. Image examined, read 25 September 2026. Confirmed Dwelling 38: Moses Williams, 69, farmer, born Tennessee, real estate $300; Nancy, 67, keeping house, born Tennessee. Next door, Riley Williams, 50, born Tennessee, and his family; one door on, Samuel Evans, 31, and Nancy Ann, 27.
  3. S6351880 U.S. census — Boston Township, Madison County, Arkansas, p. 37. Ancestry record 5403284. Image examined, read 25 September 2026. Confirmed Enumerated 23–24 June 1880. Dwelling 312: Sam Evans, 43, farmer, born North Carolina; Nancy, his wife, 37, born Tennessee; Mary, 11, and Geo. B., 9, born Kentucky; three younger children born Arkansas. Next line: Nanci Williams, 78, mother-in-law, widowed, born Tennessee, mother born Virginia; cannot read or write. The Ancestry index makes her a head of household; the page says mother-in-law.
  4. S863W. M. Wilder, Wilder and Some Connecting Families (typescript), p. 571, “A Tennessee Fragment”. Ancestry U.S. Family History Books, record 4519537298. Image examined, read 28 September 2026. Probable “F-2 James Wilder b in Va. m Nancy Hays, came to Tennessee with his father [David Wilder of Luther, Hancock Co.] and later moved to ‘Old Settlement’ Ky. They had: G-1 Nancy Wilder (dau of James & Nancy Hays Wilder) b in Tenn. abt 1802 d in Madison Co., Ark. after 1878, m Moses Williams (b abt 1799 in Tenn. d 7/27/1874 Madison Co., Ark.)”, “who was a veteran of the War of [1812]”. A compiled family history; the entry continues on p. 572, not yet read.
  5. S993W. M. Wilder, Wilder and Some Connecting Families (typescript), page numbered (290), “A Tennessee Fragment”; Ancestry U.S. Family History Books. Ancestry record 4514386444. Image examined in the Stage 2 reading, 28–29 September 2026. Probable The same entry as S863, here complete on one page: “G-1 Nancy Wilder (dau of James & Nancy Hays Wilder) b in Tenn. abt 1802 d in Madison Co., Ark. after 1878, m Moses Williams (b abt 1799 in Tenn. d 7/27/1874 Madison Co., Ark.) who was a veteran of the War of 1812 and his widow drew a pension therefore. They m 2/15/1819 in Hawkins Co., Tenn.” It names their son Sampson Williams, born in Hawkins County (“1925”, a typing slip for 1825), and James Wilder's parents as David Wilder, born in Virginia about 1760, died at Luther, Tennessee, aged 96, a Revolutionary soldier, and Nancy Elkins. A compiled family history by the same author as S863, so not independent of it. No marriage register has been read. Moses Williams's War of 1812 widow's pension would test the marriage and her maiden name.

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Compiled for the Proeger family

Living adults appear by name and relationship, with the year only: no full date of birth and no home town on any page that search engines index, and a living person’s own page is kept out of search engines. Minors appear by name only — no date of birth, no birth year, no age, no school, no place, no address, no other identifying detail. A minor may be named and may appear in a family photograph; nothing further about them is published. Where it is not established whether someone is an adult or a minor, the minor rule applies.

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