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52 Ancestors: Week 3, Annie Margaret (Williams) Heckendorn

Orginal post: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This week's entry is my 3rd great-grandmother, Annie Margaret Williams. Her father, Richard Williams, was a Welsh immigrant whose family settled and farmed in the small community of Bellasylva in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania. Her mother's family came to Pennsylvania as part of the Palatine migration roughly a century earlier. By 1870, when she was about 7 years old, her family moved to Jefferson County, Nebraska.1 There she would marry Clay Heckendorn at just 16. They removed to Furnas County, Nebraska where they were living in 1880.2 She would, unfortunately, die that year only 2 days after the birth of her only child, Luella Heckendorn.

According to family tradition, Luella was abandoned by her father after her mother’s death and adopted by her maternal grandparents, Richard and Elizabeth Ann (Raugh) Williams. This is corroborated by the 1900 census in which Elizabeth Williams is listed with a daughter “Lucile,” or perhaps “Luella,” born August 1880.3 Additionally, the 1885 Nebraska state census records a daughter “Louisa,” age 4.4 No other records document a daughter Lucile or Louisa, so this is certainly Luella.

photo
Photograph of Annie Margaret (Williams) Hekcendorn.

Genealogical Summary

Annie Margaret Williams, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Ann (Raugh) Williams, was born in Bellasylva, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania about 1863 and died in Eureka Precinct, Furnas County, Nebraska 19 August 1880.5 She married at her parents' home in Eureka Precinct 21 December 1879, Oliver Clay Heckendorn, son of John N. and Sarah Ann (Croasmun) Heckendorn.6 He was born in Perry Township, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania 1 May 1855 and died in Houston, Harris County, Texas about 1909. He married second, Elizabeth M. Shea, and third, Atha E. Newell.

Child of Oliver Clay and Annie Margaret (Williams) Heckendorn, born in Eureka Precinct:

  1. Luella Mabel Heckendorn, b. 17 Aug. 1880; m. William Wallace Dennis.

  1. 1870 U.S. census, Jefferson County, Nebraska, population schedule, Big Sandy Precinct, p. 7 (penned), dwelling 56, family 55; digital images, FamilySearch, DGS 4273887 > image 55; citing National Archives microfilm publication M593, roll 830.↩

  2. 1880 U.S. census, Furnas County, Nebraska, population schedule, enumeration district 23, Eureka Precinct, p. 8 (penned), sheet 687-D, dwelling 90, family 91; digital images, FamilySearch, DGS 5161280 > image 180; citing National Archives microfilm publication T9, roll 749.↩

  3. 1900 U.S. census, Thayer County, Nebraska, population schedule, enumeration district 156, sheet 4-A, Alexandria Precinct, dwelling 81, family 81; digital images, FamilySearch, DGS 4120381 > image 215.↩

  4. 1885 Nebraska state census, Jefferson County, population schedule, enumeration district 434, Eureka, p. 25, dwelling 82, family 82; digital images, FamilySearch, DGS 4639857 > image 95; citing National Archives microfilm publication M352, roll 29.↩

  5. "Obituary of Mrs. Elizabeth Williams," The Alexandria Argus (Alexandria, Nebraska), 23 November 1905, p. 6, col. 4; digital images, Newspapers.com.↩

  6. Jefferson County, Nebraska, Marriage Record A:426, Clay Heckendorn-Annie M. Williams, 21 December 1879; database with images, Ancestry, "Nebraska, U.S., Select County Marriage Records, 1855-1908," > Jefferson > 1864-1890 > image 258 of 889; citing State Library and Archives, Nebraska State Historical Society.↩